Wanted Alive (Story #151)

This is the Solitaire Story I wrote on 8/13/26. This one's set in a (decidedly ahistoric and pastiche-like) gold mining camp in the very early 20th Century. Into this hardscrabble community comes an Eastern city slicker, purportedly searching for his famous hermit father, the semi-legendary Old Man of Spider Hill. At first the camp is skeptical of his intentions, but in time they become inspired by the young man's tireless and uncomplaining search for his missing (and mythical) pa. Winter brings with it multiple reversals of fortune; will the camp survive the reckoning?