Gatekeeper's Secret
Copyright© 2026 by Fick Suck
Chapter 6
“They signed the lease?” Darla asked.
Grady scarfed down another chocolate chip cookie. “They put down a month’s rent as a security deposit. I expect the horses to show up next week.”
“Money in the bank means you’re flush this month,” Randy said, snatching a cookie from under Grady’s hand.
“Get your filthy mitts off my cookies. Darla made them for me,” Grady said. “You already get Darla’s cookies, you greedy little shit.”
Darla raised her eyebrows. “Is that what we’re calling it now, Darla’s cookies?”
“Yummy!” Randy crowed.
Grady turned to face her. “He’s your problem, Darla. In my case, I already spent the money they gave me.” Grady looked at them with a smirk on his face. “I’m putting in a solar array on the east side, facing southward. I could have bought them cheaper myself, but arranging transport and delivery was not that much cheaper and a huge pain in the ass.”
“I thought you said it’s illegal to take your house off the grid?” Randy said. “You going to go rogue on us, cowboy?”
“Bait and switch, my dear friend, hide and seek,” Grady said as he turned both hands palm up and then palm down. “The line from the utility is going to remain at the front of the property, attached to a new circuit panel in a small cinder-block building that will anchor a new front gate, as required by the lease. Grandpa never got around to installing camera feeds along Route 50 to cover the property heading west. I’ll use the utility line to power those feeds.”
“Sneaky,” Randy said. “I guess the poachers are going to be shit outta luck this year.”
“Yes, they will,” Grady confirmed. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have much work to do, little time, and less fortitude, having lost some of my cookies.”
“Hold on, cowboy,” Darla said, “Randy said that you said you were probably going to see Christina Witt. Inquiring minds want to know.”
Grady stood up. “According to the woman, Kimberly Masters taunted and pushed her one time too many and over one boundary line too far. For the record, she not only put down Kimberly, but she trashed Ashley as well. If it were me, I’d put her on the school MMA team.”
“We don’t have an MMA team, doofus,” Darla said. “She got suspended for a week.”
“That’s a lack we should rectify then,” Grady said with a big grin. “A suspension doesn’t matter, she was going to miss school anyway, picking up her horses and bringing them back. As for a second point for the record, I don’t trust Reverend Masters of Eastside Evangelical either and neither should you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a long drive.”
Grady appreciated the smell of the meatloaf with two strips of bacon on top as it cooked in the oven. He settled into his chair with one of the two journals that were written by his ancestors. The writing revealed that he was reading the words of his great-grandfather.
April 12, 1922
I found the remains of Isaiah Sims on the mountain. Damn fool was hunting on my land and traveled too far up the mountain. He must have been caught up in the suspension field when the mountain lion took exception to his presence in her territory. Even though he played the fool, I pray he felt nothing when she mauled him to death. I loaded his body on the horse and delivered the mutilated corpse to the Sheriff.
April 30, 1922
The alarm went off after sunrise. When I arrived at the gate, a woman in a flowing green gown was waiting. At first, I thought she was human, but her eyes had an almost oriental cast, and her streamlined ears were higher on her head though her tresses hid them at first. I doffed my hat, and she bowed her head. After she touched the stone, she told me she was on a quest for new seed. I was not sure what she meant until she attacked my belt and yanked down my britches. Let us simply agree we had a fair trade: she got her seed, and I got one outstanding ride I shan’t forget.
Grady did not know what to think about that entry. He could not imagine having sex with an alien woman, but he was willing to admit he probably would have done the same thing if a woman pulled his pants down. He saw no sense in judging a man and events from a hundred years ago. “Damn, I think the horn dog trait runs in the family.”
August 5, 1924
I had a bad one today. The gem alarm went off sometime in the middle of the night. Fortunately, the moon was full. When I got near the gate, I lit the lantern. I heard a slight scream and then crying. When I approached, I found a lump of rags, hiding poorly behind a tree. It was a child, and he was sobbing. He was not human, but human enough to understand his fear. I gave him water from the canteen. He sipped once. I gently took his hand and touched the stone. When I asked him if he understood me, he nodded but he did not speak.
His clothes were rent, as if great talons had struck him. There was dried blood covering parts of his body and he was obviously suffering great pain. I sat with him until he shook violently for an instant before collapsing in upon himself. The body chilled quickly. He had a short necklace around his neck with words no human had ever seen. He also carried two thick bracelets with similar words on them tied to a cord that encircled his waist, as if he was hiding them. The cord was a find in and of itself, a melding of metal and botany that I could not explain. I returned the body to the gate.
Grady made a mental note to check the shelves in the hidden room for the items. More concerning was the array of encounters his grandsires recorded. They had met violence, curiosity, seduction, business, and many other events in between. Intelligent creatures of all sorts and sizes had come through the gate, and he could not discern a pattern between the various engagements.
He was certain that the trust fund was the result of the long, long-term investments of his family, built upon the gifts, loot, and remainders they collected from the travelers who emerged through the gate. He also understood his grandpa’s admonition not to take the money in the trust fund to heart. The true inheritance was the gathered goods below the shed and the encounters to come.
October 12, 1928
I had a runner today. When I got to the gate, the tracks leading away from the gate were clear. The print was squarer than a human boot and it sank deeper in the soil. I tracked the creature heading down the mountain heading towards the road. I was concerned that if it made the road, I would lose any ability to catch it before someone else spotted it. We have cattle running south, 4R Ranch; east, Circle B; and west of us, Double Diamond.
It was moving quickly, as surefooted as my horse. It turned west when it chanced upon Haver’s Ravine, which was my break. The ravine marries another crevasse that comes straight down the mountain, meaning the runner would meet a dead end. I rode with my shotgun in my lap. Sure enough, it was a big hulking creature draped with brown hair. It was digging furiously with a broad spear. When he saw me, he dug even faster, dirt flying in every direction. As I drew near, he pulled a small sapling from his pack and planted it in the hole. I sat there on the back of my horse, staring in disbelief. It packed the soil around the plant, before standing up.
When I approached on foot, it threw down its pack from his back and leaned on the spear. I gave the creature a moment to attack me, but the creature stood its ground. I let it touch the stone. She explained she was a priestess, and their sacred tree had produced two seeds instead of one. Their lore said a second seed would bring only evil if left in the presence of the first seed. She asked her gatekeeper to send her to a goodly land where a sacred tree could flourish. I escorted her back to the gate, where she handed me her spear before departing.
A note was added later. The tree has taken root and is growing.
Grady had to pull out the survey plats after reading that entry. He had never been down that stretch of the ravine before. Spread out on the dining table, he leaned over trying to trace the route with his finger. He was a tad confused because the ravine was not entirely straight, and the crevasse was not clearly defined. What he really wanted to do was fly a drone with a camera over the area, which would be much more efficient. He needed to dwell on that option for a while. “It’s near a hundred years old. What the hell does a sacred tree do?”
December 21, 1929
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