WRITTEN AND OWNED BY KRISTEN REID. IMAGES NOT OWNED BY CREATOR.
The Wyoming Territory was still enigmatic, like a new world to be discovered or a place that merely existed on maps that never felt real to Americans in the East. To them, it was hardly America at all. Tales of disaster and death and men that would rob folks of a scalp littered the papers with exaggerated phrases from those that claimed to have seen such atrocities and had lived to tell them. Though the American narrative liked to spin reality on its head for shock and awe filtered through ignorance, the cruel truth of the matter was that some of the tales were not steeped in storytelling fashion at all. The West was a monster to be tamed but one that would never learn to wear a rope around its neck unless the humans residing there would, themselves, swing from the rope first. America had always been brutal, or rather, it was its people who held that title. The country had simply been branded with such words due to its new caretakers. Coming from a war that had been nothing but blackness and horrors and insatiable appetites, it was not hard to imagine that it would continue in the world with its eyes winking at the devil. Civilization, people believed, would save them all. Civilization and refinement were the new words to brand the country; however, under the floorboards, residing in the dirt beneath, it was all but clean. The Wyoming Territory feared such words. It wished to roll in the dirt and brutality, as did Everett Thorley—a resident of both the dirt of humanity and the clean soap made of hopeful wishes for change.
DEATH ON A BLACK HORSE
“He rides without a name, but those that the law fits for a noose know him well.”
Everett Thorley knew not of when the adage had printed itself on weekly newspapers to be handed about around the corners of buildings, but in the way that people regarded him, he knew that it had quickly spread through the entire region, like a prayer of sorts but of one that had a stab of warning instead of something to send up to God. Though they printed his image, the articles never included his name, keeping him as more a ghost than a man, but he hardly resented it. He figured none of them even knew his name to begin with, so resorting to banal phrases as an ominous nickname was surely their next plausible step in defining him with printed words.
Though the stories about the elusive bounty hunting man from the East could be read on the front page, The Carbon Reporter’s talk of Everett’s horse, Jeremiah, or his assumed title was always overshadowed by one particular bounty in the papers: a bounty without a name, much like Everett’s origin story in the press. Men had been going for the prize for years—a whopping $7,000 just for the corpse. It had started as a government job to be handled with efficiency and money from D.C. with the ever-growing urgency of taking out a dangerous man. However, with the rising toll of agents disappearing while hunting the target, the country turned instead to its citizens for hunting, as those without refined positions in the government were always expendable in America. Dozens had tried their hand at being the predator after dodgy prey. Dozens had disappeared once they reached the target’s assumed “hold-up” which was believed to be in the un-manned portion of the vast, empty Wyoming Territory.
Over time, the bounty became nothing more than a nice addition of poster art to be seen in the papers or on wooden posts as simply a justice-seeking pipedream or an unattainable answer for nosey folks who had endless questions about the man’s likeness displayed in black ink. It was a predictable addition to see the bounty announcement each week on the same page in the same style with the same award, like a comforting familiar occurrence in the daily humdrum of the region, but Everett was not from the region, not officially. He had come from the East and had brought with him hopes of finding more bounty work to appease his hungry trigger finger while keeping his way of life in good standing with the law.
Everett had been an appointed deputy back East in his hometown after his many successful captures of criminal dogs over the years and had been offered the sheriff position shortly after. As soon as he held that golden-star pin in his hands, he fled the town for good, leaving them to anoint some other fool for the job. Everett had decided to try his luck in the world further out West, where the pull of living as the men he brought in appealed to him and the thoughts of civilization being a long-forgotten dream. If he had ever been asked what made him take up bounty hunting instead of just living it rough as a wanted man amongst the ones he caught chasing trains and coaches for a living, he would’ve said that it was simply the matter of having a set amount of money that was promised at the end of each of his endeavors. He much rather enjoyed the idea of knowing he would be awarded $50 from a sheriff instead of killing innocents and raising a price on his own head for petty cash that might not even be there when he looted a train car. Morals-wise, there was no real difference, though he felt that bringing in criminals to hang or killing them point-blank qualified as one of the more “honorable sins” and that God might spare him in judgment if he could make his case.
Now, he was the farthest West he had ever been—way past Carbon County with The Carbon Reporter and all the legend-like stories of his line of work behind him—as he traveled into the last known location of the “No-Name”, $7,000 target. With that money, Everett thought, he could retire from life completely. Perhaps he could simply fade from existence once the man had been brought in on his horse to swing. Perhaps then The Carbon Reporter could keep printing about him like a dime-novel anti-hero, and while he lived out the rest of his days as a rich hermit in the wilderness, some young fool could read about the man without a name capturing the man without a name. Then that boy might feel inspired to fall into the American Dream of making a life for himself with the assurance of cash at the disposal of another man’s soul. Yes, he liked that thought very much.
To a thirsty wanderer, the town could have been mistaken for some odd mirage in the distance more so than a community existing as something tangible with life inside its borders. Few people peppered the muddy road and porches of buildings and homes. All of them were standing stock still like actors in a play awaiting the cue to begin their practiced dialogue and movements for their new audience of one. On the outskirts of the town, there was a large wooded area with trees and heavy brush, like God had accidentally spilled a portion of his bucket of greenery and life amidst the desert and didn't bother coming back to clean up his mess. Everett kept his eyes forward on the expanse of the forest, searching the tree line as far into the thick of it as he could, hoping to land on some sign of life inside that might lead to his target. The longer he watched, the more it appeared that the very trees themselves swayed and moved like humans. He tore his eyes away and then rubbed them fiercely, deciding the desert wind and lack of sleep was overcoming his sanity.
Jeremiah huffed loudly, unnerved, and stomped his feet as Everett rode him down the main path—if it could be called such. Everything was mud or dirt or rock. Everything was cold and silent. The townsfolk all lifted their heads at the same moment as Everett stopped Jeremiah on the path. Everett glanced around at them, saying a few awkward “hellos” and tipping his hat, but none of them responded nor even smiled or nodded. They were like statues with piercing eyes, cold and distant yet somehow wrapped around his very soul like leeches eating his heart. His skin was chilled despite the blistering June sun drenching his body in sweat. Everett dismounted Jeremiah and tethered his reins to a post in front of a building that looked to be a saloon of sorts, though not very lively from what he could tell. A creaking metal sound was the only thing to fill the emptiness of the town, and Everett shot his eyes in the direction of it, soon taking in the sight of a sign at the end of the road with the town’s name etched into it:
NEW ARCADIA
est. 1760
Everett squinted his eyes and read the numbers again, confused at the date and how such a settlement had managed to form so far out West and survive all alone without being wiped out by illness, lawless gangs, or any other tragedies awaiting them out on the plains. Surely, the inscriber had mistaken his markings and had meant an eight to be where he had put a seven. If the date was true, Everett was sure that America itself had not even known of New Arcadia’s existence during that time.
Everett ascended the wooden steps into the saloon and out of sight of the heavy glares of the New Arcadians. The piano in the corner sat unloved and dusty with the only life touching the keys being that of a black widow and her spindly artwork. The chairs were empty save two that held a pair of hard-looking men sharing a cigarette and a bottle at a table. Their eyes shifted away from the floor and landed on Everett in the way that all the other townsfolk had held him. Everett didn’t greet the men. The barkeep was wiping a glass as Everett took a stool and tossed a coin out on the counter.
“Rye Whiskey.”
The glass was quickly filled with copper liquid and placed in front of Everett. He nodded in appreciation and then knocked back the glass. He dropped a few more coins onto the counter as he studied the man with scrutiny, almost leaning over onto the counter to catch his eyes to assure himself that the man was alive and not some odd figment of his imagination.
“You’re not from here,” the barkeep remarked sharply as he took the money and refilled Everett’s glass. Everett felt a snide remark about the muteness of the town tingle his lips, but he cleared his throat to keep it from spilling out.
“No. I’m not.”
“You’re a bounty hunter, then? We sure see our fair share of those coming here.”
“But never leaving, hm?” Everett barely let the man finish his words before he spoke, lifting his head slightly to look at him square in the face. The man smiled then—a kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He looked over at the other two patrons still sitting at their table before returning his heavy glare to Everett.
“You been to the graveyard up by the church on the hill?”
“The graveyard... yeah, seems that’s where all those bounty hunters and agents have gone missing to.” Everett let out a bit of a dry chuckle. “I’m here for what all those men have been trying to capture... for someone that I know is here. I ain’t a fool. I ain’t a boy playing dress-up wishing to make a name with the law for bringing him in. I couldn't give a single damn about any of that nonsense. You see, I got a right mind to think that I ain’t much better than the man I’m after, so, this little coy game you’re playing is gonna be met with my bullet if you’re keeping him from me. Now, I’m good at what I do, but I ain’t the omnipotent Lord above, so where’s he hold-up at?”
The man stood up straight behind the counter and breathed out with a roll of his eyes. “I simply meant that that gravedigger up there, Pickman, he’ll probably be able to tell you. He’s an undesirable soul around here, so he would surely know where another undesirable is hiding. We folk of New Arcadia don’t deal with scum nor men claiming to be scum trying to clean up scum. We like to be ignorant of what goes on around here if it doesn't involve us directly."
Everett smirked at the man’s oddness and finished his drink before slamming the glass down on the counter. “Right, thanks.” He tipped his hat and stood from the seat to leave the saloon—the men at the tables staring him down until he was out of sight.
The gravedigger, Pickman, looked like he could bury himself in the coming hour alongside the corpses that held his withered and decayed appearance with equal measure. His arms were dark with dirt and his face was gaunt and peeling from long hours in the glaring sun, but his voice and his general disposition were lively, much unlike his occupation. His eyes were milky when the sun shined on them as they landed on Everett who wondered if the man was blind from his years of digging for the dead. The man coughed violently and rubbed an arm over his mouth to sop up whatever remnants had collected there from the force of it. Everett had hardly been in the man’s presence for more than a minute and he was already aggravated. Dealing with odd locals was always a thorn in his side, and this man was no exception, and if anything, he was the thick, terrible thorn of a bramble that would slowly make its way into Everett’s brain and drive him mad.
“What you want, partner?” Pickman asked with a gruffness in his voice that sounded like it was trapped in the very grave he dug. “You ain’t from around here.”
Everett watched the man as he resumed his digging. He noticed that the grave he was shoveling away at seemed to already hold death inside it instead of a fresh bit of land to bury someone, but Everett ignored the peculiarity of the situation as he lit a cigarette.
“No, sir. From the East. Harmony Dale. Out in Carbon County.”
“Harmony Dale, you say?” The man asked with a wry grin, “I knows folks from over there. Some folks here in New Arcadia came from the East once like a band of merry pilgrims on a journey to everlasting salvation from violence out here in the open wilds.” The gravedigger looked over Everett with scrutiny as he stuck a finger out towards him. “But you don’t look the part of a pilgrim, friend, do ya?” Everett didn’t answer. He simply blew out a puff of smoke. Pickman laughed immediately, unnervingly so that it made Everett nearly jump in place at the strange outburst. The odd man went back to digging, almost halfway down the depths of six feet deep. He clicked his tongue a few times and let out a strange noise like he was already making up his mind about Everett. “I see. Come to do the devil’s work, huh, boy? We already got folks in that position... good things come to those who work their fingers to the bone.”
Everett pulled the bounty poster from his satchel and held it out to Pickman for him to study. “This here’s him, the man I’m after. I’ve come to collect, simple as that. Now, I know he’s here somewhere. What’s his name?”
The old gravedigger clicked his tongue again before spitting to the side. He screwed his hat down further over top his head so that his strange eyes were shielded from Everett’s sight. “Media vita in morte sumus in.”*
“What?” Everett furrowed his brows and tossed the rest of his cigarette down into the blossoming grave. The skillful language flowed from Pickman’s weathered lips like he had quickly been possessed by an ancient man of a different life.
“Don’t know his name, sir. Don’t know him. Lots of folks come here... pass through... they don't stay too long in New Arcadia. No one stays long out here past that little, westward, town, Red Pass... not since its Cholera demon came swooped up all the living and took them all asunder. Red Pass is a ghost town now, just as our neighbors, Río Muerto,” Pickman howled with his hands on his stomach as if to keep his insides from bursting out with his laughter, “Oh, I suppose that’s what them ignorant folks get—Americans namin’ a town something Spanish—but them fools never knew what them words meant... they just picked the only words they had heard from a native thinkin’ it was something magical about the land they were settlin’, but that Mexican knew it was pure death. Lord, they was livin’ in Dead River and all died from poisoned water!” he bellowed as he shoveled more of the grave.
“Yeah, seems every town around you folks gets eaten up by violent rustlers or mother nature and the like, yet you all are untouched like God’s got his hands over the land.”
“Ain’t nothing of God’s doing, son, I assure ya of that. We just... lucky.”
“So, do you know where the bounty is?” Everett shook the poster again to focus Pickman’s attention.
The old man raised his grimy hand sharply, pointing to the tree line. “Ubi mortuus ortum,” he said without pause, a forceful utterance.*
Everett shot his eyes over at the expanse of forest in the distance before peering back down into the dirt hole to watch the skinny, old man pull open a coffin that was covered in bits of earth. It was like he had been searching for buried treasure and had finally heard the wooden thud of his shovel hitting the locked-away prize.
“Grave robbing gravedigger, then?” Everett yelled down to Pickman, who turned to look up at Everett standing above him, but then he laughed and began shifting the corpse inside the coffin around. It was a dead woman, though she hardly even looked like she had been so for more than a day. Her skin and features were still intact. Pickman threw the woman over his shoulders and climbed back out of the hole with her in tow. Everett’s mouth hung open with soundless questions unable to escape his lips as Pickman tossed the sagging corpse out onto the dirt beside Everett’s foot.
“What the hell in God’s creation are you doing?!”
“Graves don’t hold bodies down around here, friend.”
Everett shot his eyes to Pickman with questions dancing behind them.
“That a bit of loony spiritual scripture wisdom?”
“Something spiritual... sure.”
“I should shoot you for being such a vile bastard, you know that?”
“You see that Whispering Forest, hmm?” Pickman chortled as he unceremoniously dragged the woman by the arms across the yard.
“Whispering Forest?”
“Mm, all them trees up there and wood and brush? That’s Whispering Forest. That bounty you’re seekin’... he’s up in there.”
“The bounty is up in those pines? Hiding out?” Everett said slowly, wondering if the old man was just putting him on.
“Eh, yep, he’s up there all right. Has been many a year. Come along, then, I’m headin’ up in there myself. I’ll show him to ya, promise,” Pickman said as he kept dragging the woman.
“I ain’t above putting a bullet in you. Either for leading me astray or for defiling that poor woman, it won’t much matter.”
“You come along. You’ll see I’m truthful in the matter.” Pickman loaded up the woman into a wheelbarrow and directed her in front of him towards the forest. Everett checked his revolver.
Pickman and Everett crossed the threshold into the woods with the mid-day sun now blocked out with a coming storm. As soon as Everett’s boots left the harsh desert ground and met the mossy floor of the forest, it felt as if he was in a dream or had been drinking one too many whiskeys. His eyes drooped and his skin itched like people were digging their nails into his flesh. Pickman was animated in his every movement as if the two of them were headed off together to watch some spectacle.
“Where is the bounty, Pickman?” Everett uttered with a warning in his tired voice, “You best tell me now, you little creep.” Pickman didn’t answer. He only thrust his dirty arm out in front of himself as if to lead them both just by the motion. Everett forced his eyes to remain sharp.
The bark on the forest trees was dark red but not in a way that had Everett believe that their roots had been born from the soil that way. It was like someone had taken a brush and had haphazardly painted the trunks in crimson. The wind passed through the leaves—a smell of something dead came down the hill to Everett from the depths of the wood and it sounded as if the whipping of the branches caused the breeze to carry voices and cries of torture. A deer turned its head to regard him. Its antlers were caked with the fresh shedding of velvet, despite it being mid-June—the time when the shedding had not started yet. Strips of the bloody velvet hung on each branch of the antlers, some even falling into the deer’s face. Its black, doll-like eyes left Everett’s as it violently scraped its antlers against a nearby tree. New strips of the bloody skin encrusted its crown, and as Everett watched, he began to notice that the deer was not shedding velvet but tearing away flesh and blood from the tree as if he had gored a human. Everett breathed in sharply at the sight, and as he retreated slowly, backing away, his boots crushed a fallen limb—a crack invading the silent forest. The sharp noise alerted the deer, and he scampered off deeper into the forest with the gory strips flying in the wind on his antlers like a macabre flag.
Pickman seemed oblivious to everything around them as Everett nearly felt as if he would fall face down into the wet, moss-topped ground. He pulled his revolver out of its holster and held it tightly in his grip, keeping his eyes on Pickman. The woman’s corpse bounced back and forth in the wheelbarrow unceremoniously under the forceful pushing that Pickman was having to do over broken limbs and various rocks.
“You make sure we don’t lose none of her along the way, hm?” Pickman laughed heartily through his clenched teeth.
“Tear us down. Tear us down,” a growl drifted through the woods on a sudden breeze against Everett’s ear. The stoic man nearly jumped from the ground, and he twisted around in place to examine the forest. He slowly drew up his revolver and aimed around at the trees, expecting someone to come busting out from behind them.
“You hear that? That voice?” Everett whispered to Pickman who didn’t stop in place. He kept the wheelbarrow crawling clumsily over the shifting terrain as Everett stood completely still, watching the pines. The bloody red trees started to move, not from a breeze at the top with swaying leaves, but at the trunks on their own accord. They bent and shook like dancers. Everett quickly moved his cemented feet and backed away from the sight in front of him—his revolver aimed ahead on an unseen and unknown threat. His back pressed into a tree—the sick, thick smell of rotting corpses overtaking his senses. As he quickly pulled himself away, he felt like he had been absorbed by sticky taffy as if the tree was clutching him in gummy bark.
Everett eyed the tree. It was as red as the others around it, but upon further inspection, Everett saw bits of skin attached to it. He grabbed at his back, feeling the sticky substance on his clothes and fearing to feel a part of himself missing and see it attached to the tree, but he was fully intact. Everett circled it, and as he looked up higher along the trunk, he realized that it was a thing of horror—an abomination to exist alongside God’s perfect creation. Human eyes had been nailed directly onto the bark, the majority of them a rotted smudge of something that still held the past existence of its human owner. Fingers were strung up with thread like a necklace for the tree to wear proudly as teeth hung beside the grisly jewelry as an artful decoration. An eyeless face, mouth agape, was stretched across the bark like it was on a tanning rack. Blood covered the bark like glue holding the bits of flesh in place. Everett could feel himself shaking as the tree stared him down with countless eyes. His ability to tear his eyes away from the tree was shot, and his mind ran wildly with prayers for Pickman’s living presence to comfort him amidst so much death.
“Tear us down,” the eyeless, stretched face said with its withered lips. “Tear us down!”
Everett pulled up his revolver and shot three times into the face and the tree.
“The hell you doin’ bounty hunter?” Pickman called. Everett holstered his revolver and closed his eyes to steady himself—the smell of decay circling him like buzzards above. Following the old gravedigger’s voice, Everett kept his eyes shut tightly and felt his way towards Pickman.
“Pickman? Pickman?!” Everett shouted, his shaky voice piercing the unnervingly quiet forest.
“I’m here, ya fool,” Pickman said before sucking his teeth. Everett opened his eyes once he could feel Pickman’s presence near him. He watched as the gravedigger began cutting up the corpse of the woman in the wheelbarrow with a knife. Her arms were already missing from her body, and he was busy sawing at her torso before Everett jumped on him.
“Stop! Stop!” he yelled as he wrapped his arms around Pickman’s shoulders to pull him away. Pickman twisted under Everett’s hold and stabbed the knife into his rib over and over again until the bounty hunter fell to the ground. Pickman jumped on top of him and stabbed him again in the chest and twisted the knife before pulling it out. Everett’s screams of pain drifted into the breeze to alert ears that would never listen to what went on in the forest. The old man's glassy eyes were like white orbs in his head as he watched Everett struggle to breathe.
“Media vita in morte sumus, bounty hunter.” The gravedigger hoisted up Everett as best he could and pulled him across the forest floor until he was lying next to the dead, puzzle-pieced woman. Everett tried to reach for his revolver, but his dying hands betrayed him. He watched, helpless, as Pickman scooped out the woman's insides from her skin and hung all of her essence up on various trees like a painting among his nature gallery. Everett could hear a scream in his head—not his own but of a woman.
“Tear us down. Tear us down.”
“You’re the bounty?” Everett uttered, his voice wavering. Pickman wiped his messy hands on his shirt and came over to Everett to study him. He placed his hands on his knees and cackled.
“Oh, no, bounty hunter, do I look like that picture on your poster? No... no, he’s here. I’ll show ya. I made a promise to ya I would.”
Pickman gripped Everett’s wrists tightly and dragged him over to a tree. Everett tried to yell, but his lungs no longer held anything in them. Pickman threw Everett up against the tree and gripped his neck to hold him in place as he dug around in his pockets for something.
“The man you all been huntin’ ain’t a man, friend. He keeps New Arcadia clean and pure and free of the terrors this West wasteland threatens us with. We want peace, here, you see. We been here a long while... we all lost friends and family to utter hell and chaos out here over the decades, but the one you seek saved us. He ain’t God, but he keeps us alive.” Pickman pulled out a few large, rusty nails and held them up in front of Everett’s eyes and shook them. “I feed him our dead and the strangers comin’ through. I offer him what he needs, and he keeps all us New Arcadians alive and healthy. No pain, no gangs to wreak havoc, no disease to wipe us out, no strangers to bother us. This forest is where all them strangers disappear.” He pushed the nail into Everett’s palm and breathed out a laugh. Everett shook and tried to yell, but he was barely anything more than a husk. His eyes were flickering, and his heart was slowing. Pickman hammered the nail into Everett’s palm with a rock until his body hung against the tree on its own. “See, if humans come out in these woods, he’ll smell ‘em and eat ‘em without hesitation, but that’s our understandin’—if we all stay out of these woods, then he don’t eat us. He don’t much mind my presence, because I already smell like a corpse. He can't tell I'm out here, so I’m the one that comes out and feeds him. Once I leave, though,” Pickman whispered as he leaned in closer to Everett, “He’ll smell you.” He hammered a second nail into Everett’s other palm, and the dying man hung limply against the tree—a fresh sacrifice to save New Arcadia from violence. Once Pickman seemed satisfied with his art, he began whistling as he walked back over to the wheelbarrow that was now empty and stained from the dead woman.
“You’ll be gettin’ that bounty of yours, friend. I didn’t break a promise.” Pickman kept whistling a tune of his own making as he walked back in the direction that would lead him out of the Whispering Forest.
Everett tried to pull away from the tree, but his strength and the utter pain in his hands kept him in place. The threatening storm started to sprinkle a slight drizzle of rain over the forest as Everett vulnerably hung against the tree—death toying with him.
The deer with the crown of flesh came into view at the corner of Everett’s eye. It walked over closer and sniffed him, seemingly unbothered by his presence, almost as if Everett was invisible. He gathered his voice and cried to the deer, “tear me down,” but the indifferent animal huffed and pranced off into the woods.
Everett’s eyes scanned the trees surrounding him, feeling like an equal with them all. They swayed and danced again, and he felt as if a million eyes were staring him down. He closed his own to keep the horrors at bay as best he could.
A sudden, sharp crackling of limbs engulfed the forest, and Everett heard a few trees fall heavily to the ground. He shifted and tried to pull away—keeping his eyes closed. The crackling got louder and came closer, and closer, and closer, until it was nearly upon him.
Then, the forest became silent—so silent that Everett wondered if he had died. By pure, fearful wonder, he opened his eyes.
Red eyes met his own, attached to a figure that could in no way be a creation of God. Its sharp teeth hung in its open mouth and its claws gripped some haphazard part of a human. It breathed heavily of hunger as Everett shuttered in horror. The humanoid beast looked familiar to Everett, like the nameless man in the poster, but it was as if the beast was wearing it as a mask. The trees cried out and the baleful creature of that western void devoured what he was offered.
New Arcadia carried on in the evening with smiles. They finished their nightly routines and went to bed feeling life in their bones. Pickman stayed awake, digging up the next grave in line. The metal sign of the town creaked in the silence of the night—its starkly engraved letters signaling its proud title of civilization, peace, and hope. As the world destroyed itself around them, New Arcadia would keep the dirt from their name and exist in that Western emptiness as the civilized paradise it had been founded on. America would be able to embrace them all in the coming century, for the country was busy kicking its own dirt under the rug to keep its image clean.
Out in the town’s borders, a burning lantern in the distance pierced the dusty wind of the night. New Arcadia would be a welcoming sight to behold for the new traveler. The young man would notice the odd date of the town but would keep riding towards it. A black horse awaiting its lost rider would remain hitched at the darkened saloon as the traveler would ascend its steps, hoping for the assurance of cash at the disposal of another man’s soul—hoping for a chance at capturing the nameless bounty.
*Media vita in morte sumus in -- "in the midst of life, we are in death"
*Ubi mortuus ortum -- "when the dead rise"
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