Mission Statement:
To endeavor to bring to all residents of the Five States the most current and important news from across the entire Five States region. Never yellow, the Five States Herald vows to serve only the people of the Five States, from New Austin to Lemoyne, free of charge now and forever.
Rum Production at Record High!
By Sofia Kathleen Fairfax – Lead Correspondent
We rarely think about the revenue agents anymore, those prancing tin horns looking for untaxed moonshine. Well, a type of alcohol is starting to flood the Five States, and it’s not whiskey or beer.
Old-fashioned rum like those sailors used to drink centuries ago has always been a hot commodity. But as of late, producers across the mighty Lannahechee are getting boatloads of the drink to Van Horn, where it’s being sold on the streets of Saint-Denis. Who is producing it is unknown; the most common assumption is small teams on islands or cays further up the Lannahechee, but they could be anywhere. The funny thing is, they might not need to be so secretive.
Revenue agents are supposed to go after untaxed alcohol, but rum, if watered down, barely constitutes alcohol. All of these merchants are claiming to be bringing nothing but grog, and unless you really study it, how would you know it’s not something potent like bumbo straight from the Caribbean? As a result, the agents are either not bothering to check the rum or immediately grabbing it, assuming it’s potent and illegally created. Even still, it’s not stopping the sale by and large. Regulations never made less sense.
Outlaws prove unlikely guardians of rare vulture nest
By Wylie Frey
A rare vulture nest in Hennigan’s Stead has found itself under the strangest protection imaginable: the long guns of outlaws who likely have no notion the birds are there. Hunters and collectors have lately taken a keen interest in vulture eggs, the former seeking them for the cooking pot and the latter hoping to preserve the uncommon specimens, but naturalists warn that continued taking of eggs could prove devastating to the already scarce birds. One nesting pair, however, appears to have chosen its ground wisely, settling in a remote stretch of Hennigan’s Stead regularly favored as a campsite by robbers, fugitives, and other men who prefer their company scarce and their firearms close at hand. The presence of these rough characters has kept most honest hunters and collectors well away, as even the promise of a rare egg loses some shine when obtaining it requires creeping past several fellows with itchy trigger fingers. Thus, through no kindness or intention of their own, the outlaws have become guardians of a creature naturalists fear may otherwise disappear from these parts, and so long as nobody tells them, it may be best for bird and man alike to leave the arrangement exactly as it stands.
Five outlaws found dead near O’Creagh’s Run
By Jane Duran
Five men were found dead near O’Creagh’s Run under circumstances suggesting they were killed by a single gunman of extraordinary speed and precision, according to tracks and other signs examined around the scene. Three of the dead have been identified as known outlaws, and authorities believe the remaining two likely rode in the same company, though their names have not yet been established. Each man was killed by a single shot placed squarely between the eyes, and of the five, only one appears to have managed to draw his revolver before dying; his weapon had not been fired. Tracks surrounding the bodies indicate no second attacker and suggest one man approached the group, killed all five, and departed alone, though precisely how one shooter could have dispatched so many armed men before even a single answering shot was fired remains unexplained. No witness has come forward, no name has been attached to the killings, and whoever left those five bodies beside the cold waters of O’Creagh’s Run remains somewhere beyond the reach of the law.
Blackwater lays its nameless Trick Shooter to rest
By Odell Clifton
Blackwater laid its nameless Trick Shooter to rest beneath a gray West Elizabeth sky, bringing a mournful close to the life of a man whose true name remains as elusive in death as it was during the several months he spent entertaining crowds along the town’s streets. As earlier reported by the Herald, the shooter was killed in a duel subsequently determined by authorities to have been unlawful, but with no papers found sufficient to establish his identity and no known relation stepping forward to claim him, there was no mother, brother, wife, nor child to whom the sad news could be sent. Instead, Blackwater itself appeared to stand in for family: shopkeepers closed their doors long enough to watch the modest procession pass, children who once gathered eagerly to see bottles and coins struck from impossible distances stood unusually quiet, and several townsfolk placed flowers, playing cards, and spent cartridge cases beside the plain grave. Few among those present could say where the Trick Shooter had come from, fewer still could claim to have known him beyond a greeting or the crack of his revolver, yet for months he had been a dependable little piece of Blackwater life, drawing applause from laborers, travelers, ladies, and loafers alike. Thus a town that scarcely knew the man found itself mourning him all the same, and when the last earth was turned over his coffin, one mourner perhaps put it best: “Never knew his name, but I knew when he was missing.”
Violent horse said to hunt woman outside Valentine
By Emery Cosberry
A most unusual warning is circulating through the Heartlands after a woman claims she was pursued, attacked, and very nearly killed by a horse apparently acting without rider or master. According to her account, the animal first charged upon her and lashed out with its hooves, missing by such a narrow margin that she immediately fled, only for the beast to give chase across the countryside. “I hid and thought I was safe,” the shaken woman said, “then I saw the beast on me and next thing I remember I woke up at the Valentine doc’s office.” The physician who attended her said her injuries were severe and that she was fortunate indeed to have survived whatever struck her down. No horse matching the woman’s description was located afterward, nor have other attacks been confirmed, leaving residents to debate whether a vicious animal truly roams the Heartlands or whether some important portion of the tale remains untold. Several Valentine townsfolk, displaying rather more curiosity than sympathy, have already begun asking what exactly a respectable woman might have done to inspire such determined wrath from a horse.
Chance photograph exposes suspected police bribery in Saint Denis
By Aloysius Levron
A chance photograph taken by a visiting cowpoke has thrown Saint Denis into scandal after apparently capturing a wealthy resident passing a considerable stack of money to a city policeman in an alleyway, an exchange neither man seemingly realized had been preserved by the camera. The photographer, who had spent the day taking pictures of himself before various modern sights of Saint Denis, reportedly noticed the suspicious figures only after his photographs were developed and examined more closely; the resulting image soon came to the attention of authorities and has since stirred angry demands from citizens who wish to know whether the photograph depicts one crooked officer or evidence of corruption reaching deeper into the department. Saint Denis Chief of Police Benjamin Lambert stated that he had no prior knowledge of such activity and confirmed that a full investigation is being opened into the matter. Officials have thus far withheld the identity of the wealthy man pictured, though a source within the police department tells the me that investigators know precisely who he is and intend to question him regarding both the money and its intended purpose. Until those questions are answered, one accidental photograph has accomplished what countless accusations and whispered suspicions could not: it has provided Saint Denis with something that can be held up to the light and examined.
Horse ramming craze bewilders riders across the Five States
By Frederick Vannesse
A peculiar and dangerous activity has lately spread among cowpokes across the Five States, wherein riders urge their mounts to a full gallop and deliberately ram unsuspecting strangers, or, more alarmingly, their horses, with all the determination of a desperate ship’s captain driving his vessel into an enemy hull. Reports of the practice have arrived from roads, settlements, and open country alike, and witnesses describe an especially strange maneuver immediately before impact. “I saw him galloping at full speed and then that fella just hangs off the side of the horse a bit,” one witness told the Herald, “and then plowed right into the horse and seems to shrug it off.” Horsemen consulted by this paper insist such a collision ought to break bones, cripple mounts, or kill horse and rider outright, yet those practicing this so-called “horse ramming” have repeatedly been observed riding away apparently none the worse for it, with their animals likewise displaying an unnatural resilience. Whether some peculiar trick of balance, saddle, or sheer madness is responsible has so far escaped reasonable explanation.
Reason, however, is seldom an obstacle to the Respawners, that increasingly familiar and unsettling cult whose members maintain that death itself is merely an inconvenience and that the world perceived by ordinary men is somehow false. One Respawner, questioned concerning the collisions, offered an explanation unlikely to satisfy veterinarians. “As you well know, this world is false and we are mere representations of something else,” the cultist said, “we cannot be truly harmed here, nor can our horses.” The man further claimed that horses are not even representations of living beings, but merely pieces of this supposed false world inhabited by mysterious “Avatars”—the Respawner name for unseen, supposedly genuine persons who, by means the cult itself cannot satisfactorily explain, direct certain men and women among us. The Herald cannot endorse such metaphysical gymnastics, though the continued survival of riders who ought properly to have been scraped from the roadside lends the Respawners an uncomfortable morsel of evidence. Until a sensible explanation presents itself, travelers are advised to regard any cowpoke charging directly toward them at full speed not as a poor horseman, but as a possible practitioner of the Five States’ newest and most inexplicable lunacy.
