Echoes in Eternity

A little something some friends and I threw together as both an anticipation of a contested Republican convention and a summary of the last month of the Republican race...

Dear Reader, what you are about to read is one of the most harrowing stories of betrayal, survival, and revenge in the history of mankind. Few can hear this tale and remain unchanged, just as none of the characters in it emerge unscathed by the end of its telling. Thus forewarned, let us commence with this amazing saga…

There were once a party of fur traders, led by Captain George Octavius Peter Istablichmint, who set out into the vast American territories to make their livelihoods. Though always on the lookout for marauding groups of Native Americans, particularly from the Rineau and Liboreau tribes, all seemed to be going well and the party was nearing the successful completion of their quest and the eminent return to camp. But one day, a band of Rineaux, led by Chief Lynn Seagram, attacked them, killing many of the traders (including the young implacable Carl E. Pheorenah) and sending the rest fleeing for their lives. Among those who survived were Captain Istablichmint, Marceau Rubieaux and his son Jeb, Theodore Cruise, and Don D’Rumpf. They decided that their only hope of survival was to travel by foot back to their base, Fort Washington.

Initially, while there were arguments amongst the party on the right path to take, especially heated between Misters Rubieaux and D’Rumpf, it seemed that they had thrown the Rineaux off their track. But unbeknownst to them, a bear (the local natives called it Kristee) and her two bear cubs, known as Pow Ur and Faym (its third cub, Dig Knitee, had died months earlier due to an incident with some Cowboys), were living in the territory through which they were passing. One day, Marceau was out for a walk when he came upon Kristee and the cubs. At first, she attacked only hesitantly, thinking Rubieaux posed little threat to her cubs. But when he shot her with his rifle, the bear attacked with vicious ferocity, and nearly killed Marceau before finally succumbing to her own wounds. Rubieaux was left close to death, trapped under the bear carcass.

The rest of the group, upon noticing the tardiness of his return, went searching for him and discovered the grisly truth. With the help of their care, he held onto life through the night. But now the trip back to the safety of Fort Washington was significantly impeded by Rubieaux’s injuries. At any moment, a band of Rineaux could descend on them. D’Rumpf argued that the best plan was to kill Rubieaux immediately and save the party, but the Captain was unwilling to do so, and decided instead to bring most of the trappers with him to return to the fort as quickly as possible, leaving Jeb, Theodore, and Don to care for Marceau until he died. But D’Rumpf had other plans, wanting both to avoid the danger of staying in the wilderness as well as get back to the fort for his payment. He wanted to finish what the bear had started. He was quite fond of bears, in fact, and thought they were tremendous. He was particularly jealous of their large paws. In honor of the bear Kristee, D’Rumpf wore her pelt for many months afterward. But as for his plans for Rubieaux, he knew Cruise would never entertain killing him, and obviously Rubieaux’s son would sooner die than abandon his father.

So while Cruise was away from camp one day, Don D’Rumpf murdered Jeb as his gravely-wounded father watched, unable to help. Don then attempted to bury Rubieaux alive, but was in too much of a hurry to cover his evil deeds; so instead he tricked Cruise into leaving with him and returning to the fort, claiming that the Rineaux were nearby, Rubieaux dead, and Cruise lost. D’Rumpf left the camp, assuming Marceau would soon die, if he wasn’t dead already. However, with a renewed sense of purpose and desire for life, driven by a need to exact vengeance upon his son’s killer, Rubieaux did not die. With the zeal and fortitude of many men, he dragged his broken body across the wilderness, repeatedly avoiding run-ins with roaming bands of Native Americans, until he eventually came across a fellow wanderer, a Pawn(ee) by the name of A. Mary Convoter, who hesitantly shared her dead bison with Rubieaux. This sustenance helped him further regain his strength as he still had much farther to go in his pursuit of justice. Sadly, when he awoke in the morning, a band of Liboreaux had caught his friend Mary and lynched her. A Liboreau is much like a Rineau, only more vicious and unforgiving and shares little love for the Rineaux. In his attempt to steal one of their horses and escape, he found that they had kidnapped a young woman by the name of Mid Elk Lass, abusing her at their leisure. He helped free her, killing one of her captors, John M. Keans, in the process.

In the subsequent escape, Rubieaux rode his newly-acquired horse Rahm Neigh straight off a cliff, killing the horse instantly. Faced with the prospect of freezing to death in that cold, barren land, Rubieaux knew that, though dead, Rahm Neigh’s carcass still offered him some aid. So he set about eviscerating the dead animal and proceeded to crawl inside to keep warm during the long, cold night. 

The next morning, having further recovered much of his physical health, Rubieaux continued his trek toward vengeance. Meanwhile, back at Fort Washington, Rubieaux’s Super Pack canteen was discovered. The Captain, not knowing Jeb was dead, assumed he had acquired the canteen from his deceased father but somehow lost it in the interim. A search party was formed to find Jeb, but D’Rumpf knew that this meant Rubieaux was alive, so he stole off in the night. In the ensuing search, the Captain found Rubieaux and brought him back to the fort. When they realized that D’Rumpf had escaped, they set off together to chase him down.

They quickly caught up to him in a vale deep with wind-blown snow. Unfortunately, D’Rumpf’s betrayal knew no bounds, and he mortally wounded Captain Istablichmint in a conventional contest of firearms. Upon finding the Captain’s body, Rubieaux contrived to use the Captain’s body to ambush D’Rumpf and they ended in a bitter struggle before Marceau finally prevailed. However, he was loath to finish off D’Rumpf himself, but he happened to see Jean Caysic approaching. Caysic was one of the chieftains from the Rineau tribe, so Marceau left Don to the chieftain’s merciless hands. Caysic also happened to be the father of Mid Elk Lass, who, as you know, had just recently been rescued from the clutches of the Liboreaux by none other than Marceau Rubieaux.

The last we hear of our protagonist, we find him weary of fighting Liboreaux and Rineaux, so he lived out his days dreaming of his dead Mexican wife, Aym Nistea. Meanwhile, the young trapper Theodore Cruise, his name cleared of all wrongdoing, went on to a successful and renowned life in the American wilderness.