36 – Aftermath

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Draft 1 – Updated 22 FEB 2026 (C036/D001)

The first church built in Three Mills was a log affair. It stood fifteen rounders tall—ground to roofline—and was saddle-notched at the corners. It served the community for the better part of two generations both as a place of worship and as the settlement’s de facto meeting hall. Eventually, however, the size of the community eclipsed the size of its rustic tabernacle and the households of the hamlet pitched in to replace it.

The new church was larger and made from milled lumber. They added a bell tower and set everything on an ambitious foundation of fieldstone masonry. As the community matured around it, the grand staircase leading to the front doors, became Three Mills’ unofficial center stage. Nothing significant happened in the hamlet-cum-village that did not involve those steps in one way or another. Citizens were either climbing them to attend meetings inside or gathering before them to witness a spectacle of some sort outside.

The Church of the Benevolent Overseer, the ornate cathedral that eventually replaced the town’s last wooden structure, was the largest and only granite church in the western province. It had just opened its doors when Three Mills’ closest neighbour suffered its tragic end and the terrified refugees of Milton fled to it seeking sanctuary from the Company’s vengeance. And it was on these very steps that the citizens of Three Mills both heard their pleas and, for reasons of self-preservation, reluctantly turned them away.

Most recently, these same stone steps had been the scene of an unfortunate transaction that turned out to be the last ever conducted by Overseer Victor Wilson. Shockingly, less than a full turn of the day after that transaction, Wilson, his deputies, and all of the slaves in his coffle train were dead at the savage hands of gnolls. 

In the mind of The Reverend Josiah Garrett, that horrific event was likely to be the most historic thing ever to happen at Benevolent Overseer. So he recorded the events as he witnessed them, placed them on the shelf in his library next to the journals of his predecessors, extinguished his candle, and went to bed. By the time he was set to deliver his daily lesson to the set-aside children the following morning, he had already moved on from it. 

“Obedience is love,” he had just stated, when a commanding voice penetrated his wooden doors and echoed through his nave. What was said, he could not make out. But that it was said with some authority was unquestionable and hinted at trouble in the square outside. “Excuse me for a moment, Mrs. Garrett,” he said, signalling his wife to attend to the set-asides while he investigated the source of the disturbance. 

Wary of being seen as a Nosey Nigel, Rev. Garrett did not immediately open the doors and stick his nose out. Instead, he spent several moments listening, wondering. Should he open them at all? Or should he ignore the disturbance and go back to his own business?

He heard voices. Men’s voices. At least one of them was angry. 

Then there were more. An argument, perhaps. If it was an argument, it seemed to involve a lot of people. Surely that justified opening the door. Then the word FIRE caught his ear and Garrett to reach for the handle.

The first face he spotted through the crack was the cooper’s. The big man was working with his apprentice and others in a line of some kind. They were passing things back and forth. Were those buckets? Then he smelled smoke which caused both his eyes and the door to open a little wider. The butchery was on fire. My goodness, he thought. Should I help? Will it spread? Should we evacuate the church? 

The door drifted wider still and Captain Croft appeared. He was on a horse, riding with other men. He said something to a deputy in an unusually large hat. A moment later, the man in the hat bolted away, followed by a handful of others. They rode down the hill and away from the square leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. Where are they going? Why aren’t they helping? 

A sudden flow-change snapped his attention back to Cooper, who seemed stunned. The big man stood motionless, a wooden bucket dangling from his hand. He was gazing at his apprentice who was holding something to his stomach. Captain Croft’s horse waded through the throng toward them. Then an arrow pierced the chest of a uniformed man near him. 

The reverend looked up instinctively, searching for the source. The fletcher’s oldest son ducked behind the slope on the roof covering his family’s shop. Garrett felt his eyes grow large. Then he slipped back inside and pulled the door tight.

“Help me,” he shouted to Mrs. Garrett, struggling to lift a heavy bar then sliding it into place across the portal.

They prayed then. They knelt and they prayed with the set-asides. They prayed for Cooper and Captain Croft. They prayed for Copper’s apprentice and the deputies. They prayed for the man who took the arrow in his chest. But mostly, they beseeched God to protect the Church of the Benevolent Overseer so that it might continue the Company’s work in His colony.

And then it was over. Sounds of tumult dimmed, replaced by moans and groans and pitiful cries for help. Garrett stood from his knees and returned to the door. His head cocked; his eyes looked up and to the left. He held his breath listening.

Pound! Pound! Pound! Garrett flinched back from the door, hands raised defensively as waves of sound echoed through the granite cavern. 

“Reverend G-G-Garrett,” a man’s muffled voice called through the thick panels. “Reverend Garrett. We need you.” Pound! Pound! Pound! “Please, Reverend. Baker’s d-d-d-dying. He don’t wanna g-go to hell.”

Mrs. Garrett helped her husband remove the heavy bar and the right side of the door swung open to reveal a hellish scene. Cooper sat on the top step, leaning forward, his head buried in his hands. At his feet was a wooden bucket with a broken, dangling bail. Blood trickled out from its sides, creating a ring on the light gray granite. Garrett wondered if they would ever be able to scrub that stain from his steps.

He went to the big man first, thinking he was injured. “I’m fine. Just a bit . . . dazed.” His whole front was sprayed with blood: his face, his shirt, his pants. “It’s not mine,” the cooper told him. 

“The children!” A woman screamed, stopping at the edge of the square next to the churchyard. “They’re gone.”

Cooper snapped back to reality exchanging looks with Garrett.

“Go,” said the preacher. “Go,” he instructed the man who had come to fetch him.

“But, B-B-B-Baker—” the man stammered.

“I’ll find him,” Garrett promised. “Go find the children.”

“He’s over there,” the man said, pointing toward the butcher’s shop, running after Cooper.

Garrett paused for a moment to get his bearings. He spotted Splitter and was surprised. He didn’t think Splitter ever climbed the hill into town. But there he was standing over a dead man looking forlornly down, the head of his axe planted on the ground like a bloody ferrule. He wondered for a moment if the stain on the axehead came from the body on the ground. But from the look on Splitter’s face, it didn’t seem likely.

“Preacher!” Garrett looked up to see a parishioner beckoning. “Ya gotta help Baker. He’s bleeding out.”

Garrett descended the stairs and wound his way through the dead and dying. A dozen steps into the journey he spotted Captain Croft being dragged backwards by his heels toward a line of corpses next to the churchyard’s wooden fence. His head lolled to one side and Garrett nearly gagged. The side of his head was caved in. A bloodfilled eye hung from a misshapen socket.

The man dragging Croft dropped the sergeant’s feet when his corpse came neatly alongside another with an arrow protruding from its chest. Garrett remembered, suddenly, what he had seen and he glanced back at the now vacant roofline of the fletchery.

Baker’s soul left his body before Garrett finished his rites, but the preacher finished them anyway. Then he was called to another victim’s side. “What’s your name son?” he asked, looking down into a face that was so badly beaten, it was difficult to recognize it as human.

“Rooster,” the man said, spraying droplets of blood through a mouthful of broken teeth, “Caldwell.”

His last name shot through Garrett like a static charge. He peered again into the man’s face straining to see past the swollen tissue and the muddy bloodstains. “Are you Frank and Fryda’s boy?” Garrett asked him, lifting the man’s limp, head to get a look at his tangled hair.

The man nodded weakly, pulling his chin toward his chest, teetering on the edge of consciousness.

“Rooster,” the preacher said. “It’s me. Josiah. Josiah Garrett”—he used a thumb to peel one of his eyelids back—“Cousin Josey.”

The eye rolled back and Garrett doubted it even saw his face. “I’m not going to lie, Rooster. You’re in a bad way. Is there anything you want me to say to your pa?”

Rooster’s head lolled. Garrett patted sharply on his cheeks trying to bring him back. “What words would you have me give to your father, Rooster?”

Rooster coughed. His tattered tongue ran through the mess in his mouth. “Ha”—he coughed weakly a few times, jetting little spurts of blood onto Garrett’s sleeve, then grimmaced—”hang ‘em”—he panted from the effort—”all.” Then he sagged, sighed, and Garrett watched his soul take flight.

As the preacher delivered Rooster’s last rites, he had a sudden realization. The voice that started all this, the voice that pulled his attention away from his lesson with the set-asides . . . that was probably Harry’s boy. 

Captain Croft was here. So Harry’s boy would probably be with him. Garrett’s suspicions were confirmed moments later when he accompanied the transfer of Roster’s remains to the line of corpses at the churchyard fence. Looking closely at the corpse with the arrow in its chest, he recognized Harry Hilmer’s son and felt the ground fall away from his feet. 

Garrett recalled the church in Southport. He had accompanied his cousin as Les Chateaux’s chaplain. He had witnessed Harry order the doors chained shut. He had seen the torches smash through the stained glass windows. He had prayed for the wailing souls inside until the bell crashed down from the burning belfry. When the last screams were silent, he prayed for the colony.

That was one. This was two. Rooster was a Ducot by way of marriage. The other—Malcom, was it? Harry’s son. He was the governor’s nephew. His sister’s only son. 

Garrett’s breath grew short. His forehead burned. He turned his baleful eyes to the Beneficent Overseer’s stone bell tower and fought back a crushing sense of defeat. So much history. So much work. God’s work. Wasted. 

A heavy hand on his shoulder caused him to turn. “Kids are fine,” Cooper informed him. “The women took them to the woods when the—“

“Who did this?” Bellowed outrage caused them both to turn. The blacksmith stood over the corpses, face contorted, eyes black. He was shrieking at Splitter. “Who killed these men?”

“That one killed Joiner.” Splitter gestured. “Gutted him.”

“So?”

“So I killed him back.”

“You murdered a deputy?”

“He killed my friend.”

“He’s a deputy!”

“They were gonna burn my place down, Smitty. They were gonna burn us all down.”

“Is your mind crippled too, boy?” Smitty was stupefied. “That’s murder you just confessed to.”

“I was just . . . we were just defending ourselves.” Splitter was annoyed. “Man’s gotta right to defend himself, Smitty.”

A nudge from Cooper followed by a chin gesture pulled his attention away from Splitter and Smitty. Amanda Butcher and Hannah Fletcher had come around a corner and were entering the square. They were accompanied by the savage girl that stayed with the butchers from time to time. All three were ashen faced, grim at the sight before them.

Hannah’s oldest son emerged from the crowd milling in the square and reached arms toward his mother, who latched onto him in obvious relief. She wrapped him up and held him as if she might lose him, clutching the teenager for several moments. Then they separated to arms length. He said something Garrett could not hear. She nodded a few times. He gestured vaguely toward the square and she glanced around eyes large and mouth agape. Then she grabbed him again as if she might lose him again.

Amanda Butcher looked across the square in the direction of her shop only briefly. Then she went to the injured man closest to her and knelt down next to the people attending him.

“Arrest this man,” Smitty shouted, causing Garrett’s attention to shift once more. A few of the men in the square moved in their direction, drawn by the noise.

“Nobody’s gonna arrest nobody,” Cooper drawled.

Smitty grabbed Splitter, snatching his axe, nearly toppling him. “Then I’ll do it myself.”

Curious eyes turned toward his protest which was beginning to generate a gravitational pull. 

“Arrest him for what?” Cooper demanded slowly.

“For murder of a duly sworn deputy.”

“Wasn’t no one’s fault but theirs,” Splitter gestured to the line of bodies. “Them fellas was out of control. This one”—he singled one out with a finger—“was slashing folks. Only way to stop him was to put my splitter in his back.”

“There,” Smitty jabbed a finger at Splitter. “He admitted it. In front of witnesses no less. Says he struck that deputy down. Blood’s still on the head as you can plainly see.” Smitty raised the axe, displaying it to onlookers. 

“It ain’t murder if it’s self defence, Smitty,” Copper shook his head. “Reverend Garrett here saw the whole thing. Wyncha ask him what happened?”

Garrett felt the heat of two dozen eyes turn his way. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t see everything. I was . . . inside when it started . . . But even if I did . . . I don’t think it would matter.” Garrett took a long deep breath before pointing toward the churchyard. “Two of the men lying by that fence are Ducots.”

Gasps ripped through the square. A few men swore. Cooper looked sick.

“Governor Ducot’s family to me,” Garrett told them. “You all know that.” He paused here debating if he should say it, knowing the price he might pay for saying it out loud. “He won’t abide this. Not with family dead. Nothing I can say will change that.” 

“I told you—” Smitty jumped in.

“You, too, Smitty,” Garrett cut him off.

Smitty shook his head. “But I wasn’t even here. We were—” he pointed north.

“Doesn’t matter. Only thing that matters is those two bodies.”

“You were here too, Preacher,” Smitty reminded him accusingly.

“I was. And I will pay a price. Of that I am certain.”

Garrett wondered what the price would be. He wondered if this was the end. He worried about his wife. He wondered what would become of the set-asides.

“So what do we do?” Cooper asked. 

Garrett thought about it before answering. Only two options came to mind. “You can throw yourself on his . . . unlikely mercy”—he shook off the images of bodies nailed to crosses—”or”—he pointed east—”flee to the free lands and trust that God will protect you.”

“Or . . . ” Amanda’s voice rose from behind the front row. Bodies parted to allow her through. She climbed the steps and turned to face the gathered.

“Or we can stand up to these bullies. Defend our homes. Fight for freedom here . . . instead of running to find it somewheres else. And maybe dying along the way.”

Cooper nodded and Garrett realized something he hadn’t considered. Running had its own risks. The chances of dying on the long road to the free lands were pretty far from zero. Some had done exactly that after Milton.

“We didn’t do anything here but stand up to criminals wearing badges,” she reminded them.

Cooper nodded again. Others followed his lead.

“I’m sorry that the governor’s kin died here today.” Amanda raised her voice, projecting it through the square. “I wish to God it hadn’t happened. But that weren’t none of our doing.”

“Damn right,” said Splitter, snatching his axe back from Smitty.  

“Now if the governor wants to come down that mountain and hear the truth about what happened here, we can talk,” Amanda continued.

Smitty sneered at Splitter and folded his arms. 

“But if he sends more thugs to commit more violence against us, we won’t have a choice. We will defend ourselves again.” The defiance in her eyes was infectious. “We will not be bullied in our own homes.” 

“That’s rebellion,” Smitty shot over his folded arms. 

“No,” Amanda shot back. It’s not.” She turned her body away from Smitty, tracking her eyes deliberately across the eyes in the front row, pausing just long enough on each of them to make them feel seen. 

“We are not trying to change the governor. We are not doing anything against the Company. We are upholding their laws . . . not changing them.”

“We don’t get a say in that,” Smitty’s arms unfolded and he took a hostile step toward her. 

“Sure we do, Smitty,” Amanda smiled and turned toward him. “The only people who got no say are slaves.”

“We ain’t slaves.” Splitter sneered at Smitty. 

“We ain’t rebels neither.” Smitty sneered back. 

“We are partners,” replied Amanda, who Garrett believed now had the hearts of everyone listening. “We have a contract. Remember? We do the work. The governor keeps us safe. That’s the deal we made with the Company when we came here.”

Murmurs rippled through the square. Garrett felt a twinge of hope. Cooper, too, seemed to be gaining confidence. The Company had its own interests here. There might be a way out of this.

“I’m sorry if the situation has changed and the people he needs to keep us safe from are his kin. But that ain’t my doing. It ain’t your doing neither.”

Amanda walked across the width of the stairs, stopping at the side closest to the bodies. 

“We lost nine good men today, God rest their souls.” Her forehead dipped and her eyes pressed shut. “We took eleven of theirs.”

Garrett watched faces turn toward the line of corpses, their minds doing the twisted math of vengeance.

“Considering they started it,” Amanda continued. “I’d consider that debt paid.”

Heads bobbed. People seemed satisfied, confident that she had it about right. Garrett wasn’t so sure, but it seemed a good place to stop for today. They could think on it more tomorrow.

“We can bury our dead,” said Cooper, “But what are we gonna do with their bodies?”

Amanda turned to her left, directing her attention to the two slaves in the coffle wagon who had been trying their best to be invisible since the whole sorted thing began. 

“Can you get these bodies safely up the hill?” she called over the heads arrayed between them. The crowd turned to see them, many for the first time.

“Not all of them, ma’am,” replied the driver, surprised to be noticed.

“Two?”

The driver exchanged glances with the postillion. “Two would be rissky,” he said, “but we can do one for sssure.”

The decision was made to send Marshal Ducot’s remains back to the Shadows. Captain Croft would be buried in the graveyard to be dug up again in the spring if they wanted him. Cooper took charge of the crew managing the bodies. 

“They were looking for you,” Cooper said, looking curiously at Amanda. 

“We were at the school, taking lunch to the children.”

“But the children weren’t at the school,” he frowned.

“They were,” Hannah interjected, “‘til we heard the Company was coming. Then we took them down to the creek.”

Garrett wondered who’d warned them. He’d been inside all morning with his wife and the set-asides. Then he touched Hannah’s boy on the arm and gently pulled him aside. He saw the boy’s mother tense in his periphery. 

“If you’ve anything you want to talk about, Connor,” he said. “You know where to find me.”

The boy’s eyes widened. They flashed to his mother and then back to Garrett.

“God forgives self defense,” the preacher assured him in a discreetly lowered voice. “But one needs to be careful not to let a forgivable act lead into an unforgivable web of lies.”

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