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.
Bright light turns night to day
By Lucien Privitt
The Five States is a region that has its fair share of what sound like, tall tales. A wolfman in Roanoke Ridge. Giants as tall as buildings. Spirits, including a supposed ghost train, traveling through the region as if trapped in a moment of time. Doppelgangers and other monsters set on destruction. Often these stories can be explained by dehydrated travelers not seeing straight, drunks interpreting events they could not understand sober, or any other number of explanations that cast the witness as unreliable. These events are local and viewed often by one person or at most, a few. But this week something unexplainable and undeniable happened. The night turned to day for a few moments.
All over the Five States witnesses reported an unexplainable brightness in the middle of the night. “I was traveling at night when, it was suddenly as bright as day,” one witness reported, “I mean night one moment, day the next, and it lasted for a few seconds before the light retreated and it was night again.” One witness said they looked directly into the light and it was the last thing they saw. “I was staring out into the darkness when it happened, sudden brightness,” they said, “it was beautiful and terrible, and then it was all dark and I don’t mean night time, I couldn’t see no more!” The man managed to climb onto his horse and to his good fortune, the horse brought him to Valentine. The town doctor was unable to explain if the blindness is permanent.
A train also derailed in the Ambarino mountains when a conductor mistook the sudden brightness for an explosion. “I thought the tracks had been blown up,” the engineer said, “so I hit the breaks but, turned out to be nothin’ at all.” That nothing was costly, however, as the train partially derailed. As this was a cargo train, there were no passengers on board, but there was thousands of dollars in damage. The sudden light, though shocking, may be explained by ancient observers of the sky. According to one researcher I spoke it, Ancient Chinese texts describe what they called a ‘guest star.’ “This is a star that appears and then disappears, a guest in the sky, if you will,” they explained to me. Whatever the cause, though it did not no direct damage, it had a significant impact on lives of people in the Five States.
Cowpoke arrested for drinking too much
By Jose Chavez
Tumbleweed deputies arrested a saloon patron this week. The story should not be newsworthy, as it is a rather common occurrence all over the Five States. But what makes this story interesting is that the patron was not drunk. “They did not drink a single drop of alcohol,” the bartender said, “Not. A. Single. Drop.” They repeated with emphasis. They were alarmed by the deputies actions, believing it to be poor judgement. So why was this cowpoke arrested? They were “irritating folks” and “needed to sleep off the buzz.”
Those types of remarks are often made of people leaving the saloon drunk, but as mentioned previously, this patron was not drunk. The only thing they drank was coffee. Several cups of it in quick succession. They then toured Tumbleweed from building to building, looking things in the general store, asking to test fire guns as the gunsmith, and betting all his money in games of poker. Several shop owners complained and the deputies arrested the cowpoke. They did not sleep off the buzz, but in time they did calm down and were released.
Ghost on the Rim?
By Jane Duran
In the remote and snowbound reaches of Ambarino, a curious tale has emerged from a group of trappers who ventured near the base of Tempest Rim, a towering and largely inaccessible peak in the Grizzlies West. The men, seasoned woodsmen accustomed to the perils of the frontier, reported seeing unusual lights flickering along the mountain’s upper ridges during the early hours of the morning.
“It weren’t no campfire,” insisted Elias Boone, one of the trappers. “Too high up, and the light danced like lanterns swaying in a storm.” Tempest Rim, known for its treacherous cliffs and the absence of established trails, has long been considered unreachable by conventional means. The area has been the subject of attention for a lot of explorers. This paper has reported many stories of failed expeditions and one successful expedition with photographic proof. Still, the region remains the most remote area in the Five States.
Whether the lights are the result of natural phenomena, remnants of past developments, or something more mysterious, they add another layer to the enigmatic allure of Tempest Rim, a place that continues to captivate and mystify those who dare to approach its forbidding slopes.
Revenuers arrest drunk bootlegger
By Odell Clifton
Revenue agents made one of the easiest arrests of their career this week. They had been traveling in the Great Plains when they came across a wagon that was stopped on the road. The wagon’s driver was laying the ground. “In truth, we were looking to help, that man clearly fell off the wagon,” the revenue agent said, “as soon as I tended to him I could smell the alcohol and couldn’t resist taking a look.” The agents found 18 bottles of illegal moonshine. The man was alive but in such a state of sleep that he did not respond to the agents searching his person. He work up with his hands cuffed behind him.
“He was in a bit of shock, but still drunk,” the agent said, “so he seemed to think it was all a joke and thought we were his fellows.” The agent explained that the drunk bootlegger gave the names of all of his friends, even describing the location of the moonshine stills. After securing the bootlegger’s arrest, agents seized the moonshine still and arrested two moonshiners.
Night time bank robbers thwarted by bright light in the night
By Emery Cosberry
This week an event happened that was so large, its coverage requires more than one story. The bright light in the night saved the money of several bank patrons this week. Two men and a woman made a not so daring but quite clever attempt to rob the Valentine bank this week. Instead of going in guns blazing in the middle of the day, they decided to do it at night. They had spent the entire day in a dark room, waiting for the night, to “adjust their vision to the darkness of night” they explained. Then long after darkness fell, they managed to break into the bank using a key the woman pickpocketed off the bank manager after closing. They worked quietly once inside and managed to bag thousands of dollars and a few gold bars worth an unspecified amount.
The three left the bank and were walking calmy down the town’s main road when the previously mentioned light in the night sky appeared. The light was bright enough that many people thought the sun itself had risen suddenly. Several saloon patrons stumbled out thinking morning had come. Several deputies also walked out of the Sheriff’s Station at that same time. The three bank robbers were standing there with large bags and, according to the deputies, looking very suspicious. The trio dropped the bags and reached for their guns but the deputies already had their own firearms aimed at the robbers. They put down their weapons and gave in peacefully.
Though the bank manager says they were unaware that their key had been taken and the woman admitted to pickpocketing him, the bank is investigating if they had any role in the robbery.
Saint-Denis to Feature John Gay Works!
By Sofia Kathleen Fairfax – Lead Correspondent
It’s often hard to judge what was considered a masterpiece centuries ago. You may gaze upon DaVinci with glee, but if you look at other works from other masters of the era, do you feel the same? We all know Shakespeare, but the work of Ben Jonson was once highly praised, now it rarely is.
These thoughts bounce around like loose change, as Saint-Denis’s Théâtre Râleur Theater is proudly bringing the works of 18th-century playwright John Gay to life!
Gay, best known as the author of the play The Beggar’s Opera, was considered among the finest of his era. Yet his work has never been performed in America, not in New York, not in Chicago, nowhere. It is a great honor for the Five States to present not just the Beggar’s Opera, but its sequel play Polly, and other works like The Captives or Achilles.
Will this be successful? That’s unclear; while The Five States and Saint-Denis in particular do not lack artistic well-read individuals, Gay is hardly as well-known as Shakespeare. It’s also quite possible the comedic tastes of the 1720s have aged quite poorly and may not be understood by the men and women of the 1890s. Yet, there’s only ever one way to find out!
Notorious outlaw gang brought to an end
By Adam Parvey
A gang of outlaws called the Crimson Coyotes are no more. The gang had four known members and was known for a wide arary of criminal action. Theft, destruction of property, murder, moonshining and bootlegging, horse. Basically, you name a law and this gang broke it. Federal authorities had been watching the gang a bit more closely as of late, as their crimes had slowly begun to grow larger in scale by attacking wealthier targets. An investigator that had been trailing the gang set up camp near to the gang’s camp heard several gunshots. They waited for several minutes before using binoculars to get a better view of the gang’s camp. “I saw no activity, one body on the ground,” they said, “so I rode over casually and found three dead bodies.” The three bodies belonged to three of the four members of the Crimson Coyotes. Each was shot in the head. The fourth member was unaccounted for.
“I reckon the forth member got away, or perhaps was captured,” the investigator said, “or maybe they turned on their partners in crime.” Though the fourth member remains at large, federal authorities are closing the investigation. “Three of four known members of the Crimson Coyotes are confirmed dead, the gang is no more,” they wrote in a press release.
The Five States Herald 