Elias Walker was born on the Alabama side of the Elk River, in the bottomlands near the Tennessee line. His family worked a modest farm there, plowing the dark soil, raising hogs, a pair of mules, and a few head of cattle — mostly milk cows for butter and cream, with a steer or two fattening in the pasture most years. The river was their lifeblood, watering the stock and the fields, feeding the traps they set along its quiet bends. It was a hard life, but an honest one — the kind of life that left a man’s hands calloused and his back straight.

His father raised him to work without complaint, to fear God, and to mind his temper. His mother taught him his letters and his prayers, and how to keep his head when others lost theirs. As the second son, Elias always knew the farm wouldn’t be his — and deep down, he didn’t mind. Even as a boy, he’d catch himself staring west down the wagon ruts, wondering what lay beyond the ridges.

When the Second Seminole War came, he signed his name on the muster roll as soon as he was old enough. He fought through the heat and mud of Florida, learned how to march on an empty stomach, how to sleep in the rain, and how to keep his rifle dry. He came home quiet, and a little harder around the eyes.

For a while he wore a deputy’s badge back in Limestone County — chasing drunks and horse thieves through the same woods he’d hunted squirrels in as a boy. He learned a different kind of patience in that job — how to track a man who didn’t want to be found, how to talk someone down without pulling iron, and when not to put your trust in the letter of the law. Sometimes a little mercy went a long way.

But after a time, even that didn’t sit right. Plowing furrows he’d never own and jailing the same sorry men week after week didn’t feel like a life. The west was calling.

—•—

The morning he left, the sun was just clearing the hills when he saddled Rye in the yard. His father stood on the porch, arms folded, silent as ever. But this time, when Elias looked his way, their eyes met — and his father’s gaze lingered, measuring him. Not as a boy anymore, but as a man. After a long, quiet moment the old man gave him a single nod. That was all the blessing his father would offer — and all Elias needed.

His little brother was still asleep. His older brother was already out in the field, driving a mule.

But his mama came to the gate, apron still on, hair falling in a loose braid. She looked at him with those steady eyes of hers — the same look she’d given him when he marched off to war, and the same when he came back changed.

He stopped short, met her eyes, and bowed his head as she reached up, cupping his cheek in her warm, flour‑dusted hand.

“You mind the Lord, Elias Walker,” she said softly. “And don’t let this world turn you mean.”

He kissed her on the forehead, breathing in the smell of woodsmoke and bread dough that clung to her apron. Then he swung into the saddle, tipped his hat to his father, and turned Rye toward the Elk.

The river’s current glittered in the morning light as he crossed it, and he never once looked back.

—•—

But even now — years and miles away, alone in strange mountains — he could still feel her hand on his cheek when the nights got long, still hear her words like a prayer in his mind. And sometimes, in his loneliest moments, he’d wonder if his father still pictured him as he was that morning — straight‑backed and lean, a man ready to face the world on his own terms.

Don’t let this world turn you mean