Chapter 7: Building the Future
Edward Nosedive stopped his fancy buggy on the crest of the hill to look down on High Wind Gulch, completely oblivious to the beauty that surrounded the entire countryside. His wife Edna watched with concern at what could be going on in her husband's mind when he drove them up here. And three-year-old son Edmund, even at a young age knew that by the look on his father's face, he should stay where he was in his seat.
"Oh, now really Edward?" Edna said firmly, while being calm. "They're just one buzzard family. You have nothing to worry about, and neither do we."
"Just one buzzard family?" Edward debated, grinding his teeth in anger. "Can you believe the nerve of that badger letting them into the church grounds?" He shook his head in disbelief.
Edna rolled her eyes as she took Edward's hand and rubbed it. "Well, he is a preacher you know, that's what they do. He can't just forbid someone from entering because of their race. Unless they had been causing real mischief for everyone, then he'd have a reason to make them leave."
"Pa, why are you so angry with the preacher?" Edmund had suddenly asked from the back of the buggy curiously. "And why did we stop here?"
Edward answered, not even looking at his son. "It's not the preacher I'm angry with, son. It's the fact that Callahan will not heed my warning on who he allows to stay in my town."
"And what's a warning Pa?" Edmund had asked with a perplexed look on his face, being only three years old to still not know too much about this life.
His mother turned and giggled. "Oh Edmund, it's the statement that indicates an impending danger, problem, or unpleasant situation." She noticed how her son was scratching his head in confusion. "You'll understand it when you're older."
Edward turned and winked at the confused Edmund. "That's right son, you may not get it now, but when the time comes, you'll understand what else I have planned for my family."
The young eaglet was still confused in his mind when he thought this involved an item or something. "What am I not getting Pa?"
Edward shook his head and sighed gruffly, cracking the whip over the horses to make them move. "It's not all about getting Edmund; this is about building the future." He guided the buggy down the hill. "Come, I'll show you what I mean."
None of them said anything more throughout the ride as it kept going on down until Edna noticed that her husband was riding them towards the same construction site that the buzzard family had passed by on the road to church. She politely waved to some of the workers carrying lumber and cardboard as they rode on and stopped the buggy next to a stack of red bricks piled beside a field of stumps revealing to be a clearing operation. Most of the wooden carts in place had some kind of logo to indicate ownership in Edward's name. Some of them even branded into the chopped-up timber logs like a cattle brand.
"Pa, why is there a letter in the trees?" Edmund peeked out from the buggy, curious about the letter N carved or branded into the stumps and many equipment and carts.
"Well Edmund son," Edward grinned over his shoulder, explaining it all as clearly as he could to his wife and child. "That letter N stands for our last name, Nosedive. It's what ranchers, cowpokes, and business dealers call a logo, or better known as a brand mark. It's how they mark property ownership with their cattle, furniture, timber, and equipment." He pointed this all out to young Edmund as they watched the workers carrying most of the timber, bricks, and tools around the construction site. "Without that brand, anybody could claim it as their own. See that crate over there?" He pointed to the nearest crate with the Nosedive symbol for Edmund to see.
"I see it Pa."
"That circle surrounding the N is our family name." He swept his hand across the field of stumps and to the construction site where almost everything had the Nosedive brand. "When the time comes for me to retire, all of this will belong to you.
"All of this?" The eaglet stared at the workers moving everything around.
Edward nodded. "Yes, you're too young to have it now. But soon I'll be the mayor that this town needs over Callahan Condor. And I will make you my new heir."
"Your new what?"
Edward rolled his eyes impatiently. "My new heir! It's when a person is legally entitled to the property or rank of another on that person's death. In other words, if anything were to happen to me in my time as mayor, then it will be up to you to take my place and continue our family legacy. That is why we drove down here. To show you your future."
"My future?"
"With all the money I made from selling off the timber, a new home and property of ours is under development," Edward added. "Callahan might think that a town mayor has no need for a home bigger than the others, but he has no idea how incorrect he is on that. Our family owns enough land here to build what we wish. In time, this land and this town will someday be yours to lead and make it better under our name."
Edmund nodded and turned his head at anywhere he could watch the construction site with all the workers moving about and minding their own business. Edna on the other hand knew all this was too much for a three-year-old to take in at once, but he'll learn eventually as Edward was hoping. After all, their bird race was known and believed to be the wisest and most powerful above the other avian races.
"Under our name…." Edmund repeated his father's words, his eyes darting to the timber logs, the workers, the equipment, and the landscape where the construction was happening…. after the trees had been cleared. He stared at the stumps and the lands across the town's borders. "Do trees ever grow back Pa?"
"Only if the stumps are left in place," Edward replied, turning to his son. "Otherwise, we could have them cleared away and replant new trees. There are more trees on Moo Mesa than we know to take care of that. But in this case, we don't need new ones there…...not while we build over where they used to be."
"But what're they building here?" Edmund questioned. "Does not look like fun to me."
"Son, there's more to business here than just having fun," Edward smirked. "Every goal starts with hard work. We get paid to do a job and make good profit to take to take care of ourselves. After all, business is business. And there is a protocol to it….and the march of progress."
Edna could tell that this sounded all too complicated for her son. She could tell that he wanted to understand things clearly in what he was watching with the construction. But he seemed to gather interest in what being the mayor of this town meant. So, when Edward jumped off the buggy, he picked Edmund up and carried him to where he was walking through various places, moving passed the workers so he could introduce a few of them and describe what they were working on, with Edna following behind her husband. Two men, a beaver and a woodchuck in working overalls emerged from a stack of bricks on top of a hill, wheeling a few down. Edward blocked the sun to get a better view of the two and what they were up to.
"Here come Buster and Winston," he said, pointing toward the two coming their way with the wheelbarrow of bricks.
"Those two rodents you mean?" Edna had scoffed at their appearance, being dirty from the hard work they had been doing all morning. "They're not quite clean."
"Maybe not, but they are my loyal workers," Edward admitted, shrugging his shoulders and tipped his hat to the two when they finally were close enough for him to greet them. "Morning gentlemen, how's the construction going so far? You look as if you've been working all month with no rest." He avoided the urge to chuckle at their dirty appearance.
"It's only been two hours since we started moving these bricks for the chimney," Buster was the first to speak, pointing to the hill they had walked down from.
"That's right, boss," Winston then spoke next, wiping his face with a cloth. "It'll take a lifetime to bring them all down with just the two of us. Maybe we need more workers to hire."
"They'll come soon enough boys," Edward responded, still holding onto his son. "To see the amount, I'm willing to pay them in the paper." He thought of the job advertisement he sent out across the mesa requiring construction workers for fair pay that he sent out a month ago and will take more time for them to keep coming.
"Does Mr. Condor know of what we're doing here?" Buster had suddenly brought up Callahan Condor out of curiosity and concern in their progress.
"Of course, he knows about this," Edward responded reluctantly, hating to be questioned about that vulture that this town seemed to set their eyes more on than him. "If not, he would have demanded I put a stop to this construction that's already in place when there's no way I would plan to waste that tax money for nothing."
"Any news on the mayor election boss?" Winston had asked, hoping it might lead to something other than construction business.
"Not yet, but I would like my favorite henchmen to do me a favor in the meantime," he had muttered. "Be sure to report back to me every now and then on what Mr. Condor is up to. What he might plan and propose as mayor could become a problem to us in our upcoming plans."
"Whatever you say, boss," Winston had saluted in reassurance. "Anything else you like us to do?"
"Aw yes there is," Edward had stated with a smirk, still holding his son. "It may not be a big deal to some, but there's a buzzard family that moved into town months ago. They're of no deep concern at the moment, but they may hold the key to Callahan's downfall…..and my victory." He chuckled, dismissing the two workers as they went back to work and tipped their hats to him, leaving their boss alone with his wife and son, with little Edmund now tugging at his jacket lightly.
"Pa, what are buzzards?" He asked in a timid voice.
When asked the question, Edward did not hesitate to tell his son the story of the Great War of Moo Mesa which happened after the falling of the comet, in which a gruesome battle then started between the vultures and the tribe of crows where many lives across the mesa had been lost. And any that survived had likely gone into hiding. Stories of this are now told throughout churches and schools in hopes nothing like this ever happened again. Other than that, Edward proceeded to discuss in how he and Callahan Condor started out as partners in a university over in New Cattleton, coming together to build the town of High Wind Gulch.
"You see son, Callahan Condor has developed this unwholesome belief that folks from all communities should come and live together side by side," Edward had started telling his son a half-truth story in how he and Callahan met and came together. "What he fails to understand is how his cousins, the buzzards started this whole mess by allowing their greed and lust to consume them enough to take everything that the crow tribe held onto dearly, seeking out the silver hidden in the rivers which soon led to bad blood between the two communities. To allow any of those remaining bone pickers to live here in town would leave everything we worked for to be destroyed and lead other descent folks to turn against one another."
Callahan Condor, that name caused jealousy and resentment to gnaw at the inner core of Edward's being, believing it truly should be him that the town must kneel down to, not that ruffled scavenger that he reluctantly used to call a friend. And if that wasn't bad enough, he allowed Sheriff HawkTail to drag Hunter Smith away to jail, one of his hired coworkers that was stupid enough to give into the effects of the whisky bottle to which Edward warned him to go easy on. Not because he deeply cared about the welfare of Hunter, but worried that his drunken mouth might accidentally reveal one of his upcoming schemes to the sheriff, which is why he had to send in another of his henchmen to make sure that he hadn't been saying any of it. So far, he had said nothing of it and Edward hoped to keep it that way. He had hoped the alcohol made Hunter forgetful until he would be ready to set bail on him.
But he wanted to make sure that neither Sheriff HawkTail nor Callahan knew what he was truly building in this part of town, not just yet. All that he revealed to Callahan is that it would be something big and important for the good of High Wind Gulch. Their relationship may be strained, but that was not of his concern. By the time he becomes the new mayor around here, everyone will be sure to put all their trust in him as they do for the entire eagle community instead of that feathered bone picker.
"There is another side to the Great War son," Edward then started walking back to the buggy with Edna. "By the time that the vulture clan wiped out nearly all the crow tribes, the government had sent their eagle soldiers to drive them off the same lands where the war took place…..after those vermin picked the flesh of their dead bodies."
"Oh, now Edward must you bring that up to him?" Edna had given her husband a disapproving look when he went into the disturbing side of what happened after half the crow tribe was slain by the vultures. "He's not old enough to understand it yet."
"Our son cannot be denied the truth about our community Edna," Edward had debated. "Not when it was our ancestors that had part in this story to become the saviors that helped to bring the Great War to an end before the vultures multiplied and destroyed everything in their path. That's why we still live Edmund. We are the symbol of supreme power and authority, which is why Congress looks up to us as the ones who will help lead them and their nation to victory against all enemies that threaten our way of life." He stopped walking for a moment to look down at his son and continued. "Edmund, I've grown up in another distant city where I have seen the great things that the eagles have done to build this part of the mesa. Yet even then, in school I learned the mistakes made by other past leaders from one generation to the next hardly changed anything for the upper-class system working to keep society safer and our community was dying then as it is now." He put Edmund in the back seat of the buggy and went on talking as he and Edna got up in the front seat, preparing to ride out of the construction area. "There are even those that speak out against the march of progress without knowing that it's what drives a nation forward and to leave the past behind. Therefore, we cannot allow certain members of a different community to run as the next town mayor or lead the government, otherwise their rules would create uproar for all classes to fall into chaos." He snapped the reigns to get the horses moving carefully across the path where the eagle family was able to watch the remaining workers continue working on the construction site. "As for me, it is likely that it will take me more than a year to get this town back on track in my image that differs far from Callahan's. And there's no way I will allow the new age to slip back into the dark ages under his ruling. Son, I promise you this. I will see to it that our enemies do not threaten our lifestyle as I lead High Wind Gulch into the future myself and bring a new era of prosperity to the townsfolk."
He could already imagine the praise and cheer from the crowds during the election once he wins the number of votes and be named king of the birds. They would have to see him as their savior and great leader over Callahan.
"And as for the remaining buzzard communities that still dwell out there," Edward had taken something out from under his coat. "Let me assure my loving family that any enemies that stand in our way and defies me…. will be crushed." By the last word, he squeezed the orange in his hand so hard that juice squirted out violently, leaving a trail behind across the buggy as it kept on driving.
Little Edmund watched carefully to see how his father squeezed so firmly into that orange in his hand and how the remaining juice bits dripped and leaked outside the buggy. While anyone at his age would have shaken from discomfort and confusion, a thought had struck Edward in what his life would someday be when it will be his time to build the future as the next king of the birds.
AN: Another update has happened to this story. I still plan on fast-forwarding through some parts so that I make sure the story is not dragging far behind on explaining everything in Baron's childhood when that's not how it's supposed to be. It will also be in between moments of what age he has reached as the years pass by and how he is dealing with the changes happening to town.