And I always trusted what papa had to say. Which is why when Papa told me one sweltering day that it was time for me to leave and that I would never see him again I believed him.
I cried and swore and spit that I would not go. Finally in his quiet way he shamed and tamed my tantrum. Mama looked pale and gaunt, I could not understand then just how dangerous those times were, or that such tensions were not normal.
They helped me pack all the while I cried. The Trailman arrived from the backdoor holding a giant monkey wrench and looking jittery and uncomfortable: a scrawny man with a wiry beard the color of copper and darting green eyes, a bucket hat and denim coveralls, instruments and tools hung from each pocket.
"Best be gettin' on with it Jim! I'mma trailman, not a miracle work'r much long'r n wur like te'get caught!"
A wet kiss on the forehead from papa, a hug so tight I could not breathe from mama, and then tugged with force by the trailman away from it all.
"Be stayin quiet now lil miss, n I won' have t'gag ya none. Ya unerstan?"
I don't believe I even had time to nod before he tugged me along after him.
Between lonely cobblestone alleys he dragged me, through "respected" brick n mortar businesses we went, and crept near passed the ghastly palisade til finally to the pipes we came.
A dead end or so I thought.
I'd heard tales from papa of trailmen, union fighters, dark striders, and all the other things in the world, but to see the speed and precision with which that odd man worked his wrench was a wonder to behold.
In we went to those hollow holes.
Through cold and stink we crawled. Crawled and crawled until my hands went blue, my body ached and my limbs shook.
"Good gal now keepa goin!" He would occasionally urge.
I thought I might die in those putrid grimy tubes far inside the veins of that wretched city, but on I crawled until in the dark we arrived.
The tunnel grew wide and slid off into a wider area, dimly lit, but brighter than those other awful paths.
Tied to a console it sat that simple ragged looking canoe. Sliding down to that place might have been fun in other less smelly or exhausting circumstances.
lifting me into the boat he instructed that I should change and lie down, he would be back momentarily. I did as I was bade, and then waited.
And waited.
I would not have thought I could rest with everything, but the warmth of dry clothes, my tear stained weariness, and the soreness and limpness of my limbs quickly eroded my wakefulness. When next I stirred it was to find we were in some other place. Still beneath the world, but somehow less ominous.
The next few days would prove no less tiring and perhaps more so than the first. Our daily tasks consisted of deceiving foot soldiers, avoiding the mason geists, and placating the fearsome monstrosities of sewage lines.
By the time we pushed free of the veins and the sky descended to kiss my weary eyes again I had grown more accustomed to the life, but it did not ease. The rivers and the forests presented yet more oddities. Serpents the size of trains, wild folk, and treacherous faelings, singing trees that lured travellers astray, old mine fields and more still.
When I asked one morning about the dark striders the Trailman merely laughed saying: "folk in da metal trees always be worryin bout dem dark striders. I tell ya wha chile dark striders is bu the least of ma concerns. Now eat up, long day ahead"
It was a long day. They always were, at least until we came to it. Tucked away between those steep hills, rocky cliffs, and serpentine rivers it was: a cabin.
The Trailsman's lodge.
"It ain' much, but 's home." He said through a crooked toothed smile. I tried to return his smile but I think he could sense my unease. He frowned, then sighing rubbed my head, "s'alright I unerstan, jis give it sum time." He said walking passed me towards the cabin.
It was quite spacious, I'd seen smaller mansions back in the "metal forest" as the Trailman called it, but those places had been ornate and useless; by contrast every room here, every space was filled with purpose. The main hall where most people might have had a living room was instead a massive workshop, and below it in the cellar an alchemy lab. Tools on every wall and surface, maps interlaced and sprawled across tables and desks with an occasional tabbed book either flung open or stacked among other books. The lodge itself was a miniature city unto itself, and the Trailman was all its citizens.
The next few days came as a welcome respite. The Trailman tended to other responsibilities leaving me to adjust to my new life here in the free lands. Exploration of my new environs was slow and cautious. I was careful to stay clear of the Trailman, he was nice enough in his own way, but he was no Papa and his anger could be fierce.
Days became weeks, weeks became months. I learned, I explored, I mastered skills, and apprenticed. My schedule and my progress was irregular and unpredictable with large gaps between my studies. The Trailman would leave, sometimes only shortly, others for perhaps months. Always he would return in some different fashion drunk and hauling a wagon, or else guiding a group of traders, or assisting a tribe of faeries, or nursing some wild creature.
The work and the learning did not come easy and it was frequently lonely. Slowly though I began to understand what it was to be a trailman. I thought perhaps one day that too would be my destiny, though I never said such aloud.
Years and years and many adventures of my own I had. Laid with faeries in both innocence and lust, picked forbidden berries from hidden groves, found totems in forgotten places, stepped with naked toes across so many snaky shores. A wild and happy maiden was I. until near a woman full grown I became
Then one night as I dreamt he came to me, the spirit of the bear. He asked that I might walk with him and so I did. He did not talk, he merely walked. He would stop and look, let out a breath and again walk on.
Night after night we would do so again and again, until finally to a cliff we came, and there he stopped and sat. The metal forest twinkled in the distance surrounded by the overgrowth of the true woods.
"It is your home." He said.
"This is my home." I corrected.
"Yes, but there as well."
Perhaps it was just the Trailman's influence over me, or perhaps it was my free life here amongst the magic and the treacherous woods, but I hated the metal forests with their lords and foremen, and the horrid conditions which their underlings were kept, underlings like my parents.
"No." I replied.
The bear sighed a deep and tired sigh.
Something familiar in that sigh.
"Why?" I asked.
He turned to look back, for a moment I thought he was looking at me. Then behind me I saw a den of playful bear cubs all wrestling with each other.
"As a trailwoman?" I asked.
"As you." He replied simply.
He did not speak much, but many things he said in many ways, all far older, all far deeper than any words.
When the morning came I told the trailman, he nodded sagely but said little. He did not seem sad or surprised, I suspect he always knew on some level.
"I must."
"So ya mus'" he agreed, "'fore ya do though, ya migh'nt be wantin' this." He said reaching into his toolbox.
My eyes watered at the sight of the familiar object. 'Ol' Reliable' etched into the massive handle of that monkey wrench I'd seen so long ago. The wrench of my liberation.
With reverent hands I clutched it, eyeing it intimately.
In any other hands it would have proved heavy and unwieldy, to me it was home.
He winked when I bothered to pry my eyes away, and with gusto I flung myself into a hug with him.
I set out that very night a trailwoman in my own right ready to finish the work my parents had so fervently devoted themselves to, eager to find what the spirit of the bear had promised I would.
And so I would, though many more years it would still require.
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