The sun was rising, painting a myriad of fiery colors which danced over the dry prairie landscape of southern Alberta. Tumbleweeds stirred by dust devils blew across soil spotted by shortgrass, signaling the coming of fall since there were so few trees to do so. In the sky above, Canadian geese began their journey southward as the hot air of summer gave way to the quick bite of autumn chill. As day's light burst forth and illuminated the prairie, a man atop a piebald horse started down into the valley that was his home. The man's name was Elias Porter.
     At just over six feet, Elias was taller than average, his raven black hair cut just below the shoulder. The first shadows of a beard were showing against dusky hued skin that displayed traces of Native blood, an inheritance from his father’s family. He remembered little of his father, save that he knew a family resemblance was beginning to manifest itself. His father had had the same jet black hair, which fell far down his back, and had a neatly trimmed beard. He could recall mistaking pictures of Jesus in Sunday School for pictures of his father. The teachers had always ostracized him for his error, and he consequently began skipping Sunday School and later church as often as he could. Eyes of sparkling blue stared out from beneath his hat, “like the waters of a mountain lake,” his mother had told him often. The memory pained him, and so he kept the brim of his hat low, to hide his eyes and any mention which would awaken the ghosts of the past. Elias was all too familiar with such ghosts, every day wishing he weren’t.
     He followed a faint trail which lead into a green valley, an oasis amidst the virtual desert which surrounded it. A stream cut the valley in half, snaking past the small plot of farm buildings that lay at its center.
     Of these buildings, only two stood with any prominence; the barn with its peeling red paint and rotting timbers, and the old house which loomed up, its spire reflecting the last rays of daylight. In actuality, it was an old church, a house of God refinished to be a house of man.
The land itself had never been very good for farming, and so the young man made his living by working as a hired hand at a cattle ranch in the summer, returning to tend the house and other buildings only in winter. This year had been extremely bad, and to the east, many Saskatchewan farmers were selling their land for obscene prices and moving to the city, in hopes of improving their means. Fortunately, his uncle’s Montana ranch where he worked at always did extremely well come harvest, this year being no exception. His uncle credited it to the ‘grace of God,’ and this year Elias almost believed him. Elias had purchased two head himself at the start of the season and made quite a profit.
     Elias didn’t really need the money, since both land and house had belonged to him ever since his mother had died, some fifteen years earlier. His father had been missing a few years before that. Truth be told, no one even really knew what had become of the mother either. It was said that she had fallen very ill in the fall of the boy's seventh year, and following a hard winter spent in isolation, he had emerged alone. A winter like a mist in his memory, a mist which never cleared, not even when the warm chinook winds melted the snow away.
     Today the snows were only two months away, and the autumn wind reminded him of the day his father had disappeared, the valley bathed in a similar twilight, but that of a diminishing sun. Reaching the base of the slope, the horse and its rider cut across a bridge past the house, and into the corral, where the young man dismounted and left the animal.
     Exiting the corral, he stopped to look up at the Barn, its great doors closed as they had been for so many years now. He had never opened them since returning to the land. A great sense of foreboding stole over him, and he shivered despite the heavy duster that blocked out the wind.
Shaking it off, he turned and strode towards the house, to prepare his morning meal. It was at moments such as these, with memories of breakfast made while he was still asleep, that Elias felt a pang of loneliness. It was at moments such as these when he was thankful for Shep, his German shepherd who kept him company at these times.
     “Good to see you girl.” Elias said as the dog jumped up, licking her master’s face in welcome. Elias played with her for a few more moments, then patted her back and stood. Upon entering the house, the cowboy hung up his hat and coat just as the phone began ringing.
Originally he had decided not to have a phone. A quiet man by nature, Elias tired quickly of locals who knew enough of his past to be suspicious but not enough to know the truth. They were always asking questions; to their knowledge, he had never dated, had no friends, and since the only known family was in Montana across the States border, they postulated that the Montana ranch was a fabrication of Elias’ to cover up whatever shady dealings he had while he was not at the farm. Some said Elias was a drug dealer, growing a secret stash of some narcotic crop in the valley, out of sight from prying RCMP eyes. This was just another rumor piled atop those regarding his parents. At one time this had bothered him, but not anymore. He was a loner by nature, and the rumors kept the locals from visiting too much. Having a phone might produce the occasional prank call from local boys, but with his relatives in Montana, there were often missed calls; some which could be of a serious nature, and it was for those few family members that Elias kept the phone connected in the winter months. His uncle told him he should have one for his own safety, since if illness overtook him, who would know? How would he contact people. Elias laughed at his uncle, saying, “I would have thought you of all people would know that if God decides to take my life, I’ll need more than a phone to avoid the appointment.”
Elias picked up the phone and said, “Start talkin’.”
     “Good morning Mr. Porter,” came a pleasant male voice, “This is Sazerac Torres, Mr. Terrell’s aide.”
     “Shit.” Elias said into the receiver. “Look, I already told you people, the answer is no.”
     “But you haven’t heard our new offer.” Sazerac said to him.
     “I don’t give a damn what your offer is.” Elias told Sazerac coldly. “The land is not for sale.”
“Perhaps you could lease us a portion. The Indian burial circles are probably located in the area around where the barn was built.”
     “That’s why I’m not allowing you up here. Nobody goes into that barn, not even me. And even if the burial circles were under my manure pile, the answer would still be no.” With that, Elias hung up the phone. He didn’t like talking to people at the best of times, and talking with anyone associated with Sullivan Terrell was hardly the best of times.
     Sullivan Terrell was the regional director of Culture for the rural county, which was where Elias’ land was located. He had seen many men come to the farm over the years, hoping to poke about; archeologists, anthropologists, and now government men bent on turning the farm into some sort of cultural heritage site. Elias knew that if they actually ever were able to find anything on the land to substantiate their claims that the site was an old burial ground, Elias would have to forfeit the land, whether he wanted to or not. If the government didn’t raise a stink, the Natives down near Lethbridge certainly would. Make some claim to ownership, despite the fact Elias knew it was the Blackfoot Indians who had given the land to Elias’s great great grandfather in the first place. In truth, were anyone able to do a check on Elias’ ancestry, they would find as much Native right to the land as many others, but for reasons he could never prove.
     Elias had been given custody of the land when he turned eighteen, along with a sum of money from his mother’s life insurance policy. The years in between his mother’s ‘death’ and Elias’ return to the land was spent with his uncle’s family on their Montana ranch. Those were good years. No one had questioned him about what had happened, almost as if they knew the truth, and were bound by some oath to allow Elias to grow in peace without it. When Elias came of age he returned home to begin the repairs and renovations. Three years later, the ranch stood, a testament to his family. All of the buildings repaired and restored save one; it’s barn.
     The barn was still in great disrepair. Visitors remarked on it’s usefulness, asking Elias why he would bother to build the corral and new shed for his horses when he could fix up the barn much easier. Some of the local boys had circulated rumors that it was in the barn where young Elias buried his mother and father, whom he had murdered. It had been those rumors which had stopped what was then a minuscule trickle of visitors.
     All visitors save Sullivan Terrell’s men.
     Terrell was positive that there were old burial circles located about the site, and that the Alberta public had a right to be able to view these important landmarks from a bygone era. Elias mostly felt that Terrell had some ulterior motive, and that motive did not have Elias’ or the farm’s best interests in mind. The first time Elias told Sullivan Terell that the land was not for sale and had remained adamant in his position, Terell had become furious and replied that if the lang could not be secured by regular channels, it could be accomplished by other means.
     Other means. . . Sullivan must have made another call, or sent some men. Elias’ had been visiting with his neighbor Taylor Pahl that morning. Taylor had said something about Sullivan offering to buy his land as well, a few months earlier. When Taylor had refused, Sullivan allegedly sent some men to threaten him. Taylor said he told them to all go to hell and fired a shotgun blast over their heads to show them he had the means to send them there. Elias never believed the story, since Taylor was always telling crazy stories which nobody really believed. Now, like the grace of God over his uncle’s Montana, he wasn’t so sure. He went to the kitchen window and looked out at the Barn.
     The doors were open.
     Standing in their aperture was a tall man dressed in black leather, his dark hair closely cropped above a cherub like face. Elias grabbed his coat, and walked out into the yard.
     As Elias approached, the stranger spoke; “Do you know who I am?”
     Elias nodded. “I think so.”
     The stranger smiled. “Then you know why I am here.” He paused a moment. “You realize you won't be able to defeat him on this plane. It will only be possible Beyond the Pale.”
     “I don't understand what you mean.”
     “The legends -- what did the legends say?”
     The legends; his father had told him of the Blackfoot legends, passed down by oral tradition for hundreds of years. The legend of another land, beyond this one, which could only be entered by those prepared by Death. The Land Beyond the Pale.
     “The Pale” he whispered.
     “Yes.” said the stranger. “That is why your family owns this farm.”
     The farm, Elias thought to himself, only steps away, the warmth and comfort of the kitchen. . .
     “Don't look back!” the stranger shouted, “Once you choose this path, your eyes must look to what is and is to come, not what was and might have been. Have no second thoughts about this decision. The Wind calls you. Better that you come of your own free will now than to wait for It to take matters into Its own hands.”
     Elias nodded. “I know. I was listening to the Wind today and it told me. I just didn't think it would be so soon.”
     The stranger's eyes widened and he cocked his head as though listening to something, then said, “The Wind blows where it pleases. We can only feel it and follow its lead, not understand its ways.” He looked back at the cowboy. “Are you ready?”
     Elias nodded to the stranger, who turned and walked into the dim light inside the Barn, Elias following a few feet behind.
     “You knew my father.” he shouted ahead to the shadowy figure, who was now lighting a dusty oil lamp that hung inside the doorway.
     “I knew your father.” agreed the stranger.
     “Where is he now?” Elias called.
     There was no reply. The sun had completely set, and in the darkness he could no longer discern the strangers' form ahead of him. Then the light from the lamp sprang to life and he looked about him at the barn floor. Where there had once been hay and dust marked with horse hooves' there was now a slight hollow in the ground which formed a great circle. An Indian burial circle. And at the very end of the Barn was a door with a padlock on it.
     Elias could recall the door with its lock and how he had been commanded never to touch it or even go anywhere near it.
     “The door. . .” he whispered, recalling his mother's words.
     The stranger ignored Elias's comment. “Are you ready?”
     Elias nodded.
     Suddenly a hard wind came upon them, throwing dust up within the burial circle. The cowboy thought it strange, how a wind like this could find its way into the barn...Then came a rending noise, as though ice were thawing under intense heat. Elias grabbed onto his hat and gazed ahead in awe.
      The stranger had taken the padlock from the door and was pulling on the handle. The air before him seemed to be splitting, first but a crack, slowly growing in size. Then it peeled back, as though it were only a section of painting that someone had cut loose, leaving one side attached. And the wider it opened, the more he could see beyond it.
     The cherub-faced stranger turned to him and motioned for Elias to follow him. They stepped through the portal, one at a time. Elias gazed about him, taking in as much of the scene as his limited senses would allow.
     Above them, the sky was black, with a blue glow permeating it. A flash of lightning surged, lightning up the dark landscape. Stretching out on either side of them, for what seemed infinity in both directions was a huge cemetery, the headstones of which were put pinpoints of blackness in the distance. The ground was of rich soil, with flowers and grass. The cemetery was split down the center by a pathway, composed of huge slabs of a concrete like substance. The pathway ran ahead of them and behind them. Before them, less than a mile distant, the cemetery ended and the path turned upward, spiraling to the top of a rocky crag, shaped almost like a finger, jutting out from the wall of black rock. It seemed almost that it were a bridge that someone had never completed. All the ground beyond the tombstones' end was black, slippery and shiny like obsidian in places, fine like sandy ash in others. Dividing the two was a thick, sludgy river, almost purple in color, spanned by a stone walkway. Elias turned to close the door behind him, which hung suspended in mid air, an inch or two off the walkway, which, like a vast highway. stretched far off into the distance. Beyond the cemetery in this direction lay an area of desert, with tall dunes and sandstone hoodoos. Back along the horizon, Elias could see a sliver of blood red sky slowly thinning.
     “Leave it open a bit.” the stranger said. “The time for this doorway has long since passed.” The stranger walked ahead of him, in the direction of the crag. As they walked, the stranger spoke, his voice evoking a chant-like rhythm.
     “For you to experience what is blocked by indifference, you must pass the veil of darkest night, river of blood, bask in the blue twilight.”
     Elias remained silent as the two ascended to the top of the crag. A slight breeze began to blow, growing in crescendo the higher they went, until at the top it was gale force. And beneath it all, was a sound, like the faint hum of very precise machinery, and voices so distant, chanting...      The stranger, seemingly undisturbed by it, walked to the very edge of the precipice, then turned back to the Elias.
     “Do you hear the wind?” he shouted.
     “How can I not?” Elias replied, checking his footing to see how close he was to the edge.
A smile played across the angelic features. “From now on, the Wind's voice will become more and more apparent to you, no matter where you are.” He paused for a moment, looking out over the precipice. “Come out here and tell me what you see.”
     Elias stepped forward and gasped. With each step taken, the land about him seemed to grow brighter, and the desert beyond became a lush green. He neared the edge and looked down at the cemetery. . .
     His attention was suddenly pulled away by the sound of his companion's voice. “Are you prepared to go Beyond the Pale?”
     The words had an air of finality about them, and it was with an awesome sense of fear and reverence that Elias glanced down at the guns at his side, then unfastened the straps and handed one to the stranger.
    “Do it.” he heard himself say.
     The roar of the wind rose in cadence as the leather jacketed arm rose, cocking the pistol on its way up. . .
    The last thing Elias Porter saw was the barrel of the gun coming up between his eyes, then the sound of the world exploding as darkness descended on him. Faintly, he could feel the sensation of falling, followed by a great splashing noise.
     Then there was nothing.