Untitled Revisionist Western Project
Chapter One: The Daughter’s Debt
by Crandall
May 11, 2026
The wind on the rocky butte whipped Kiona Kork’s long, shining black hair. This place was important to her people, as her mother told her; a place of transition. Kiona looked at the knife in her hand, saw herself elongated and deformed on its gleaming surface. Unrecognizable.
The plains stretched out before her, shimmering with heat. And beyond, almost on the horizon, she saw two small towns: Blackridge, its smokestacks choking the air above a tight cluster of buildings, and Eden’s Drift, the central fountain just barely seen between the buildings arranged in careful petal-like formation around it. In the wide flat space between, tiny, dark men skittered with their measuring equipment. The railroad surveyors.
Kiona dropped to her knees, placing her heavy pack beside her, and sat back on the heels of her worn boots. The blade was in her lap. The blade was in her hand. Her mother’s voice was in her ears.
“Kiona, you have to go!” her eyes had been dark fire. Kiona had opened her mouth to beg to stay, but knew her mother’s fury was justified. And that her words were an unavoidable truth. Kiona kept her silence and packed up quickly. She left her childhood bedroom gutted, her pack stuffed, and crossed the kitchen to the side door. Her mother stood looking out the window over the sink, smoking a cigarette and occasionally bringing her hand up to violently wipe a tear.
“Ina, I’m sorry.”
The hand pump dripped, her mother inhaled smoke and breathed out jaggedly, not turning around. Kiona left. The door latched behind her like a bank vault.
Kiona looked at Eden’s Drift.
By the sun, she knew her mother would be preparing lunch for her father. For a moment, the old rhythm of it came back to her—the jingling of his stagecoach horse, the quick kiss as he was handed jerky and corn dodgers, the tip of his cap to Kiona if she was nearby - the sun glinting on his ginger mustache. All was as untouchable as a mirage now. How easy things had been, how easy and gentle and loving. Why had she not treasured it? What flaw in her nature always drove her to break rules she didn't even resent? She had squandered her chances, broken boundaries, one by one, sure the forgiveness would never end. But she was wrong. She had finally found the end of her world’s mercy.
The knife still bore a rusty red stain where blade met handle. She had carved the wooden grip herself, last summer. That was around the time everyone started talking about the railroad. Would the railroad come to Eden’s Drift or to Blackridge? Talk of possible bright futures or dismal endings. Of right and wrong. Of need and desire. The debate swirled around her that summer while she carved under the shade of the big oak at Founder’s Park, a flower crown tangled in her hair.
A tear fell onto her lap. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. No more tears. No more longing for home. She had a plan and that grey, belching town she had always been a little afraid of was the stage for it. Blackridge. It was time to prepare and then go. She knew she wasn’t unpleasant to look at, nor hard to talk to. She would do anything it took to make sure the railroad did not go to Blackridge. And when it didn’t, she would ride the first train into Eden’s Drift a returning hero.
A loved one.
The wind fought her as she gathered her hair in one hand. Quickly and with dry, determined eyes, she cut the length of it and opened her hand. The strands fluttered and dissipated, the wind tearing them away. She carefully hacked at the remaining hair until she was left with a short, if somewhat jagged, haircut. As she watched her tresses blow away into nothing, she felt invigorated. This was going to work, she was going to do it, she would be home again soon. She took up her sack and started down the trail from the butte, heading for Blackridge.
