Dispatches from Gallows Ridge
"The town of Gallows Ridge is not on any official map. There is a reason for that."
I arrived in Gallows Ridge on a Tuesday. At least I believe it was a Tuesday. Time has a way of becoming unreliable in the deep territories, and my pocket watch stopped working the moment I crossed the creek that marks the town boundary.
The settlement sits in a narrow valley between two ridges of black rock that the locals call the Jawbones. The town earned its name from the hanging tree at its center — a massive dead oak with branches so thick and numerous that it could, and reportedly has, accommodated a dozen nooses simultaneously.
The population is difficult to estimate. The residents I spoke with gave conflicting accounts, ranging from forty souls to "more than you would want to count." The general store proprietor, a woman who identified herself only as Mrs. Hatchet, informed me that the census taker who visited last spring "went up the north ridge and came back wrong."
I did not ask her to elaborate.
What I can report with confidence is this: Gallows Ridge has no marshal, no deputy, and no apparent system of law. Disputes are settled at the hanging tree by a method the locals call "the asking," which involves placing both hands on the trunk and waiting for a verdict. I was not able to determine who or what delivers this verdict.
The food is adequate. The whiskey is strong. The people are polite in the way that people are polite when they know something you do not.
I will be departing Gallows Ridge at first light. I advise future correspondents to do the same. Some places are not meant to be understood. They are meant to be survived.