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A Lynchman’s Owl

  by

  B. Y. Yan

  A LYNCHMAN’S OWL by B.Y. Yan Copyright © B.Y. Yan 2016 Book and Cover Copyright © by B.Y. Yan 2016 All Rights Reserved.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  Follow B.Y. Yan (twitter @B_Y_Yan) at https://bigbinofideas.wordpress.com

  ISBN: 978-0-9950516-2-1

  A Lynchman’s Owl

  “Who is the Lynchman’s Owl?”

  Beneath the swinging light-bulb, buzzing faintly like an angry glowing bee trapped in a jar, uneven shadows threw about the smoke choked parlor. The question was greeted by a chorus of laughter as palms slapped against tables, drinks spilled over the counter, and great wreaths of tobacco were sucked back into nostrils, snorting with guffaws. For theirs was a merry gathering. And the prevailing subject in the darkened common room of the alehouse, as everyone agreed before being so rudely interrupted, concerned only the great scandal come to light: The Wager of Bark Parsley, as it was known, when a well-known visiting dignitary from overseas laid down a portion of his own kingdom against fourteen shares of the state-owned Intercontinental Express Shipping to an unknown gamble. For months now the gross misconduct of all involved was the reigning gossip of the town, inviting an opinion from every lip as the eyes of two unfriendly peoples were invariably laid upon the matter with every passing day. The identity of the Lynchman’s Owl then, as it had been for since that brief, sorry time decades ago, was a question needless of an answer. Why anybody would choose to bring it up now, in the midst of all this modern excitement, was certainly a mystery ripe for ridicule.

  But before a debate could be had on the subject all sound abruptly ceased and the parlor fell into silence. Outside guns were heard firing on the hour, soon accompanied by the sound of heavy boots treading over the rain soaked street, splashing in lockstep over the glistening cobble. Footsteps echoed outside the murky colored glass of the windows as soldiers marched on by, their steel caps and halberd heads throwing off here and there an eerie yellow glare over the mismatched reds and greens of the dirty windowpanes. When they had gone the noisemaking returned inside, but the alehouse was on a whole more muted and quiet. In the corners men sniggered knocking out the ashes from their pipes against their tables.

  “So who is the Lynchman’s Owl then?” the question was repeated to the silent parlor.

  “Who wants to know, hey?” piped an unseen voice amongst the throng.

  “Who doesn’t?” someone else replied in place of the original inquirer to much laughter all around.

  At the counter, nearer at hand to the heart of the discussion, someone took an active, grave interest.

  “But he’s a strange fellow to be asking for such, given that nobody has had an answer for twenty years, and he should really know better.” A leering face leaned in with breath stinking of liquor, “Shouldn’t you, hey?”

  It was a young man who had put the question to the gathering in the first place. He kept his silence now, breathing in a long trailing ribbon of filtered tobacco through his nose. The heavily accented voice which had driven home his inquiry before was now locked behind a wall of braced white teeth, pressed so tightly together that they might not have been pried open without a crowbar. The only reply he allowed was a whistled tune, royalist in nature, which caused a corner of the parlor to stamp their feet on the first few notes. Looking in that direction several glasses were raised in a toast. He returned it heartily, touching his collar and a cheek with two fingers.

  The gesture was replied in kind from one particular table in a corner, around which the occupants sat in a circle with their faces half obscured by shadows. It earned also a hearty bellow from elsewhere in the parlor, while nearer at hand somebody else gave a snort of contempt, spitting on the floor to serve as his rebuttal. At once voices were raised against one another on the subject which has been forced into prominence—not unheard of for patrons of the drink afterhours, and altogether not unexpected from members of the unwashed masses with nothing better to do with their time—but very little indeed could be learned about the Lynchman’s Owl, as it turned out. For a discussion, unguided and unmoderated as it was, had a tendency to fly carefree and outgrow its original subject matter. And with an opinion or two (or three for that matter) in every throat waiting to be heard, talk soon grew wild and unchecked of its own accord, as it was wont to do. Many throats piped up with as many descriptions pertaining to that creature—rascal, imp, vampire, vigilante, and villain—which were deemed important enough to dwell upon.

  The Creed. The Boxer Heist. Sir Spindlethorn and the Candle Movement. The Fairhastings Diamond. The Case of Madam Green’s Hymn Sheets. The Emperor’s Lost Coat. For twenty years these have been tales left up to the imagination of the populace, who were more often than not willing to embrace second-hand accounts from third-hand sources, embellishing them with outlandish theories until such rumors have transcended commonplace storytelling into legend. We shall not go deep into the details, for they are by this point well known to us. The Affairs of the Owl, as these episodes were known collectively by the populace, however, shed little light on the mystery beyond the purported involvement of the individual, group or force (natural and otherwise) with everything that has happened before. And in the two decades since these works of mischief entered the public consciousness (and the term into common parlance since—well, the beginning of language and civilization in these parts of the world) there was little anybody could do to put a name to matters. As best as anyone could remember, this Owl is simply a symbol of cruelty, the perceived tearing of a life from the mortal realm, dragged down into the deepest pits of the inferno in order to right a perceived wrong. It was terrible bad luck to hear an owl hooting in the hour before dawn, especially if there’s anything on your conscience that you have not confessed to, is what everybody was saying. And you might properly lose your soul for it, nothing more.

  “Hence, the laughter, I suppose,” said the young man dismissively, but by then he felt as if he were talking to himself. The parlor, absorbed in its own debate, had long ceased to take any notice of him.

  “Then why are you asking?”

  A voice speaking up suddenly at his elbow caught his attention. It was a whisper made into half a shout to be heard over the din. Looking over his shoulders he found a wary glint in a pair of curious, narrowed green eyes staring at him. He shrugged as a reply, giving away nothing.

  “Did somebody send you?”

  He laughed a little, “Now why would you think a thing like that?”

  Still those hardy green eyes held onto his with admirable determination, just as the nose set below it, lightly freckled, turned abruptly upwards.

  “Who else?”

  Despite her dirty red scarf and patched lime beret—the chosen wardrobe of a commonplace downtrodden dockworker—it was obvious to him that she was a lovely young woman who could not have been more than a year or two into her twenties. He offered her his most winning smile, saying at once, “I must confess that I do not know what you are getting on about.”

  “You,” she repeated forcefully, “Who sent you here?”

  “Nobody,” he replied. “I am here of my own free will, if you can believe it.”

  “I can’t,” she told him. “Are you a treasure hunter?”

&n
bsp; “What’s that now?”

  “Well I can tell you if you are looking for the secret stash of the Lynchman’s Owl there is no such thing and you can give it up.”

  He laughed. “I can assure you, miss, that I am not looking for any treasure. I am, if you must know, looking for the Owl himself.”

  “Ah!”

  “And as to my own patrons—”

  “Aha!” she ejaculated, “So there is somebody!”

  “Well I was just about to say I am certainly here on my own behalf, but I won’t deny somebody has put me up to this thing.” He held up his hand to her next question. “I can’t say who, so don’t even ask. But if you should wager a guess, I would be happy to tell you if you are right.”

  Again that petite white nose wriggled in obvious aversion, while the eyes above it glittered with evident interest.

  “So your mouth is sealed on the matter. But you will open it for a game?”

  He tapped his mug on the counter lightly.

  “If you will play with me, yes.”

  She barely hesitated. A dirty sleeve brushed against his arm, and a hand nervously clenching and unclenching again glowed pearl white in the dim yellow light of the solitary lightbulb hanging directly overhead. One long finger dipped briefly into a