Wyatt Cain had not grown up wanting to be a Tin Man.
Like many little boys and more than a few grown men, he had dreamed of sitting behind the throttle of one of the enormous black steam locomotives that traversed the Greater Gillikin Railroad. The thick plumes of greasy black smoke, the eerie, lonesome wail of the whistle, the amazing speed at which the great behemoths drew the fifteen, twenty, even more than thirty cars coupled behind them combined to lure him again and again from his chores or homework to watch a train pass by.
It was an ambition left to wither and die in the depths of his heart, for he sensed any divergence from his family's traditional livelihood would be met at best with scorn.
His was a family of skilled carpenters, the patriarch of which, Nicolas, carried on from his own father a well-deserved reputation for excellence. Architects and simple home builders alike often waited several seasons to obtain the Cains' services.
Wyatt's older brother Virgil, and younger brother Morgan, took to the trade as a turtle takes to marshes. They inherited the elder Cain's talent for, and enjoyment of, building fine homes, sturdy barns, and hand-crafted furnishings that would one day be treasured heirlooms or costly antiques. Wyatt did not.
Through sheer stubbornness and determination, he developed the skills that to his brothers came effortlessly. He learned to hammer nails straight and true, to construct doorways that, closed, withstood the effects of all but a direct hit from a passing travel-storm, to set rafters and joists in place that would last for generations. By the time he was sixteen, he could build a snug bier or comfortable crofter's cottage and fill both with serviceable appurtenances. But the instinct for, and joy in producing such creations had passed Wyatt by.
Or had, perhaps, merely taken another route. One day Nicolas discovered his son whittling a chunk of scrap lumber. On the ground surrounding him cavorted a small menagerie of carved animals, and two or three cars of a circus train. Every piece was worked from a different type of lumber salvaged from project refuse heaps. Each animal displayed an individual state of mind revealed in the musculature, the pose, the cast of eye. The locomotive taking shape in Cain's hands might have come from a builder's blueprint.
Expecting a dressing down for his frivolity-Nicolas brooked no nonsense from his employees, much less his sons-Cain was startled when his father strode wordlessly off, and returned with a length of fine candlewood.
"Let's see what you can make of this," the old man said, and from the soft, white, satiny wood Cain created his first unicorn.
While Nicolas considered the carvings frivolous, he understood the market for hand-crafted pieces to decorate luxurious dwellings. When he saw how Wyatt coaxed his exquisite horses, ferocious bears, elegant nymphs from the most mundane piece of wood with the same lack of effort as his other sons built structures, he sent a sampling of the boy's work to the Department of Fine Arts at three Queen's College at Shiz. Within days, an application for enrollment arrived, already stamped with the Registrar's seal of admittance.
What no one, least of all Wyatt, anticipated when he arrived at Shiz, was the recruiting poster on a bulletin board outside the college Administrations Office. One of several posters designed to catch the eye of rejected applicants, it depicted the silhouette of a man in a wide-brimmed hat. A line of gray color suggested a weapon belt. A similar color formed a star-shaped motif on the silhouette's chest. Large letters at the top spelled out TIN MAN. Smaller letters at the bottom gave the location of the Royal Law Enforcement Training Academy. Tin Man school. It was as if a missing piece of jigsaw puzzle had fallen into place. Cain scribbled the address on his enrollment form and left Three Queens without a backward glance.
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"You're too young to enroll," the RoLETA recruiter told him. "Law enforcement is no easy job. Our men have to be both mentally quick and physically capable of subduing offenders even when they outweigh you by fifty or a hundred pounds. You're in good shape, but you won't have your full growth and musculature for at least another two years. Your body can't stand up to the demands of training until then."
Cain wasn't large, but he was wiry and tough from years of muscling heavy beams into place. He had no doubt he could endure any rigors the training put him through, but the recruiter remained adamant.
"I'd like to sign you up, Son, but my hands are tied. Come back in two years. I'll personally approve your enrollment."
Disappointed, Cain returned to Three Queens and began his lessons.
It was not an unfulfilling time. He learned much that improved his carvings. He followed a physical regimen that kept his body strong and lean. He took elective classes preparing him to study the laws of the land. Cain's heart already wore a Tin Man's star.
The two years were almost up when a message came from Nicolas. Virgil had fallen from a barn roof. Falls were not unexpected in their line of work, and after one, the tough Cain men generally picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and returned to work. Virgil, however, had fallen across a double-bladed axe someone had left in a chopping block. The blade bit deep into his shoulder. He wouldn't lose the arm, Nicolas wrote, but Wyatt was needed at home until Virgil recovered.
He packed his bags. His professors were more than willing to give an extended leave of absence to a student as gifted as he was, but Cain knew he would not return. Not to attend Three Queens.
He did his best to take Virgil's place. He could still hammer nails and hand-fit beams. But any yearning to emulate his father and brother had long ago vanished. He did what the family business demanded and tried not to resent it, and longed for the day he returned to Shiz. He'd met a woman, a student a semester or two ahead of him, who was studying fashion design at University. When Cain wasn't dreaming of capturing villains, he was mentally pursuing Adora in an effort to discover what city ladies kept hidden beneath their ankle-length skirts.
Well, he'd acquired some pretty good ideas about that, based on the occasions when he accompanied fellow students on excursions to the Sin Center. Women there displayed about as much of themselves as any man might want to see. He'd sampled enough of their wares to allow him to look knowing when classmates bragged of their conquests, and to conclude casual encounters were risky and disadvantageous.
If Nicolas was deliberately rejecting jobs that would take them close or into Shiz or Central City, Wyatt did not suspect it. But when the annual Fair Days arrived and the old man informed them they would be setting out that morning for a job half way across the OZ in the opposite direction, Wyatt balked. Virgil and Morgan backed him up, and the three brothers set forth to enjoy the festivities, leaving their irate father behind.
Virgil had adapted to the lack of mobility his shoulder injury caused. He was as eager to resume his position in the family business as Wyatt was to abandon it.
"Sure we'd miss you," Morg said as they followed the brickwork road to the city. He gave his brother a gleeful smirk. "We wouldn't know what to do without all those off-square joinings to straighten."
"Pop's been against adding 'outside blood' to the business," Virgil said. "Wants to wait for grandsons. But you and Morg aren't even betrothed, and my Allie's got three near-grown brothers who want to learn carpentering. I think one's good enough to apprentice. He'll make up for this bum arm, and the other two'll create enough off-square joinings to keep even Morg here satisfied."
"You think if I were gone, the boys would have a better chance?" Wyatt asked.
"They would. So will you. Where'd you say this Tin Man School is?"
….The End. Or, perhaps, The Beginning….
Author's note:
This vignette is designed to help me learn the mechanics of publishing fan fiction on line. I hope it will also be an interesting read to anyone kind enough to take notice. I owe a sincere tip of the hat to Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, from which I drew much inspiration, to all the writers whose efforts preceede mine, and the Earp brothers of Tombstone, Arizona, all of whom proudly wore their own tin stars. No beta, so all goof-ups are mine alone.