LOST QUARTER BOOKS

Field Notes

Posted on August 6, 2026 by Clint

Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Little Green Men

In those days strangers did not receive much comment. People were always coming and going from the Quarter and no one thought much of it unless they stayed. It was the way of things until it wasn’t.

Later, no one could quite remember when the two newcomers arrived in town. Mostly this was because they didn’t stay for any length of time, in town one day and reappearing some weeks later. They were usually in the company of some of the loudest supporters for the independence movement which had lately been roiling the Quarter and other locales. A referendum on the matter was planned in the fall, which most agreed would not succeed. It would send a message out east though, let them know the Quarter could not be taken for granted.

They were regular figures at rodeos and other events throughout the region where those in favour of independence sought to sway others to their side, handing out placards from card tables set up on the grounds. It was said they were part of the monthly gathering that took place at the Carter place where the usual suspects gathered to plan for the referendum and the future that came after. If drinking a couple of flats of beer and shooting off rifles could be considered planning, some said.

The strangers didn’t say much at community gatherings, present but in the background. Those who did speak to them said they were obviously not from around here, their accents immediately marking them out. Everyone understood what that meant, though no one thought it of much note. They weren’t the first people to come north for one reason or another. When asked what they were doing in these parts, the strangers would say things like “helping out our friends,” and leave it at that.

That disconcerted some people, but most dismissed it. They were hanging out with the same people who’d convoyed out east in the last days of the grippe reborn or blocked the roads to the borders south. This was just what they did: protesting and honking and not accomplishing much when all was said and done except hanging out with their fellow travellers. Not a surprise that people from down south were fellow travellers. Look who they elected, after all.

If asked where they were from, they claimed to hail from the interior or to have family from Fort Mac. No one pressed them on these obvious lies. They were friendly and jovial with their fellow travellers, but were unable to hide their anger at being questioned by those opposed to the cause. Those people were dupes and fools, they would say loudly and with menace.

As the referendum approached, the Carter place became a hive of activity, people coming and going at all hours, including the strangers. There was shooting nearly every day on the back of the property out of sight of the road, though the neighbours could hear it for miles around. A few called the police with their concerns, who promised to look into it. Nothing was done though. Some saw trucks with foreign plates heading in that direction, though the vehicles were never spotted again, which was somehow even more concerning.

In the days before the referendum, the activity ceased and the strangers were gone. Hardly any vehicles were seen heading to the Carter place. Everyone felt a sense of relief. Once the referendum was past all this strangeness would be over.

Field Notes

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Clint

Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Parting Ways

In those days the ways back to the Quarter had changed. Roads torn up, diverted or fallen into general disrepair. The usual approaches no longer worked. In places they followed old road allowances, overgrown and washed out, barely a trail. It took hours to come to a usable road, hours where someone might chance upon them with questions of why they were there. Few were the friendly faces.

He returned after the war to this changed landscape. Everything felt unfamiliar. Fields abandoned to dust and weeds that he had never known could grow so tall. Even the houses and yards he passed were different than he remembered. Smaller somehow and he immediately noticed all the signs where entropy and decay were creeping in. Had they always been there? The sky was grey and hazy, smoke from some distant fires, which felt familiar in all the wrong ways.

They greeted him with hugs and tears, an explosion of joy that soon ebbed. His mother kept up a steady stream of chatter, news of people he’d forgotten or didn’t know, anything to ward off the awkwardness they all were aware lurked just below the surface. His father seemed at ease, but that was just his way. His sister was oddly quiet, watching him intently as though she didn’t recognize him. Maybe she didn’t. What are we going to do with you, her expression said.

She took him outside after dinner and showed him around the yard, pointing out all that had changed. Much had. He didn’t want to say he would have preferred to be alone. The barn they had played in as children had been pulled down, replaced with a new set of corrals. They’d put a shed up on the west end of the yard to provide shelter for calving season and there was a whole series of new pens and lanes stretching down to the alkali slough where they used to leave the deadstock for the coyotes.

She explained all they’d done, making clear the ideas had been hers, and the improvements that had resulted. He said little in response, which she took as a challenge. The world didn’t stand still while you were gone. No, it hadn’t, he agreed. He couldn’t put into words what he was feeling, how the image of the place he had carried with him through all those terrible days was vanished. Maybe it had never been.

They always wanted you to take it over, she said. Especially now. But I was the one who wanted to be here. You always wanted to go.

Had he? It was hard to remember the person who had ventured out. At some point there had been a parting of ways with whoever that was and what had come back was someone else. There were no words to explain that either, so he didn’t and they returned to the house.

Miscellanea

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Clint

Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Winter Comes Early to the Outpost

Snow covered over the road ahead and the stubbled fields that surrounded them, still drifting down from above. No one had come this way in some time for theirs were the first footprints to mark the trail and the snow was already to their ankles. The few trees they passed – short and shrubby, like all the trees in these parts – still had most of their leaves. Winter’s arrival had been sudden and unexpected, especially for the straggling band of travellers with thin coats and thinner shoes.

On their journey north – flight would be more accurate – they had camped out in the shelter of those sorts of trees, for they tended to cling to lowlands where water gathered. Water, which had been problematic for much of their travel, would be no worry tomorrow. The creeks would be flowing again. But none of them were in any mood to spend a night in a snowbank. They were already cold and soaked through and it would be hard work to get any fire started to warm themselves.

That was why when they came upon the smattering of houses that didn’t quite constitute a village, one of which included an inn of the old style, two stories and square, they went inside without any discussion among themselves as to whether it was wise. It wasn’t, but neither was staying outdoors for a winter’s evening in their thin coats and pants that they had hoped to have more time to find proper replacements for. The place smelled of mildew and disrepair, but they supposed so did they. A few locals, sipping harvest ale, gave them a careful once over, registering who and what they were, before returning to their muttered conversations.

The innkeeper sized them up with a skeptical eye, weighing whether their money was worth the trouble. How many rooms, was all he said. They asked for the cost and there followed a back and forth that ended with an agreement for two rooms for the six of them, with meals included. Drinks would be extra. A girl was summoned from the back and sent out into the snow to let whoever would be cooking know. They looked longingly at the heavy coat she shrugged on. It was an hour before dinner appeared, during which they sipped at peppery harvest ales they couldn’t afford and tried to ignore the stares from the locals. The girl brought a great pot of barley soup, ladling out a bowl for each of them, and handing them day old bread to soak it up with.

She looked at them with a fierce interest that worried them, sitting on a stool behind the bar, clearly wanting to speak with them. The innkeeper noticed as well and angrily banished her upstairs to ready their rooms. The other locals kept their interest better disguised, though their eyes kept flicking in their direction and their talk grew lower and lower. One man left and returned twenty minutes later, which caused them some consternation. But they reassured themselves that the constabulary wouldn’t have a station in this place and it was doubtful anyone was willing to endure the weather to go summon one. They hoped.

After they’d eaten four of them went up to wash and ready for bed while two other remained below to drink another ale and keep an eye on the locals and ensure no one had any plans. They retired upstairs only when the tavern had emptied and the innkeeper was cleaning up. Though they felt confident the constabulary hadn’t been summoned they still took shifts sleeping, one person in each room keeping watch.

They left before dawn, slipping out onto the empty road in the darkness. The snow had stopped and again theirs were the first footprints to mark the way, which would make them easy to track but couldn’t be helped. They had reached the edge of the village when the girl appeared, dressed for travel in her thick coat and heavy boots. I’m going with you, she said, her breath clouding the air. They argued with her, telling her there was no place for her among them, that where they were going was no place for a girl like her. She let them speak their piece and repeated her words, adding: you won’t make it without me. There was a certainty to her gaze they could not argue with.

Field Notes

Posted on June 5, 2025 by Clint

Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Passing Through

The wind stirred, bending the blades of grass, moving like an unceasing wave up the hill and down and up the next. A shadow moved behind it as a cloud drifted over the sun.

The two dozen or so travellers below looked up thankfully at this brief respite from the unseasonable heat. They were heading north, following the trails bison had carved through the grass. Scouts were far ahead with an eye for trouble or game, while further back mothers supervised children and dogs pulling travois. There were jests and laughter and a lightness that comes with the promise of a bountiful season to come. They paused here and there to rest where the hills blocked the sun, but did not linger in this place.

Later others passed by, now on horseback, flintlocks mixed in with bows and arrows. They moved like the wind, with it, carried to the farthest horizons. Clouds of dust marked their passage when it was hot and dry, as it was now.

The wind gusted, knocking the grass flat to the ground. The clouds seemed to cluster above, stuck in the sky even though the wind was so fierce below, the sun barely glinting through.

Others came and left, measuring out the land and marking it with rods they plunged into the earth. All around newcomers arrived, setting up houses and breaking up the land. Here the land was left untouched, no one willing to settle upon it. Not entirely though, for the settlers, seeking permanence that had never been in the nature of the land previously, planted trees in a futile attempt to hold back the wind. Seeds blew to this place and soon enough grew in low lying areas where the water gathered in spring. Short and bent things, huddled close to the land against the wind.

Later barbed wire fence was strung up, following the surveyor markers, and cattle roamed, carving new paths. A watering hole was dug where the spring runoff naturally gathered. From spring to fall the cattle wandered from the dugout to the eastern spring, finding shade in the copses that dotted the lowlands between the hills. People never lingered, coming only to bring the cattle and collect them when it was time to move to fall grazing, checking occasionally throughout the summer.

The wind howled and groaned, whistling through the trees with menace, dark clouds massing to the north with the promise of rain and thunder. Dust whipped through the air, clouds of it forming, dimming the sun.

When it grew too dry more of the surrounding lands were seeded back to grass. Better that than to watch it all blow away. The cattle remained, but the wire was stripped from the fences and the posts dug out or left to rot. Drones operated keeping the various herds separated, moving them to fresh pasture when needed. Only in the spring and the fall, during the great roundups did anyone pass through again – one or two only – supervising the drones’ work.

Later, travellers passed through again, usually when crocus flowers gave way to golden beans. Usually they were on foot, moving in groups of two or four. They went slowly, stopping to camp on occasion by the eastern spring that still ran true. The bison herds from an earlier rewilding were sometimes still in the hills if the spring had been late in coming, as it often was. At night, as the wind stirred in the grass chasing away the mosquitoes, they would lie back and look at the specks of light in the vast sky above moving on their circuits through the stars.

Field Notes

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Clint

Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Notes on Certain Settlements in the Quarter

The Summer Camps: Before their exile to the north and east, under the terms of the Dominion treaties, both the Iron Confederacy and the Blackfoot Confederacy ranged across the Quarter, following the bison herds during the summer months and establishing regular camps. The arrival of horses to the territories increased tensions between the Confederacies, resulting in raids by band members on both sides to build their herds. This was exacerbated by the arrival of the Company in the area, allying with the Iron Confederacy to ensure access to the northern river system trade routes. With the loss of the bison herds and the steady encroachment of European settlers into the Quarter, the use of the camps was abandoned. The signing of the treaties ended their use entirely.

Sybald (also Sybbald, Sebbald): A relatively late European settlement within the Quarter. New arrivals initially travelled south from Lakeview, the closest they could get by train. Within a decade a bustling community had developed, the largest in the area, and an important stop on the new train line. This initial fluorescence was followed by a long period of decline, precipitated by a fire that consumed half the town on the eve of the Great Depression. Many inhabitants left for the northern plains at the insistence of the provincial government. By the turn of the millennium less than ten inhabitants remained, though the surrounding farms still flourished. In later years the population remained relatively stable and it even regained its importance as a transit point during the disputes between the New Dominion and Greater Western Republic to the south. With the reestablishment of the Suffield Army Base as the key infantry base in the region, many of those living to the south moved north to ensure they fell within the perimeter of its drone defence system.

Gloevers Crossing: As long as there have been people in the Quarter, the spring at Gloevers Crossing was a crossroads for travellers, due to the presence of a free-flowing spring. During the period of European settlement, the spring fed a large, shallow lake that locals flocked to on Sundays to swim. The lake gradually filled in becoming a pond surrounded by a small stand of trees. In more recent years with the continued depopulation of the region as people’s interest has shifted to the settlement of the stars, several wickiups have been established in the shelter of the trees by the spring. These are semi-permanent structures, occupied during the winter months by the O-Bannon Wanderers who migrate throughout the region.

Field Notes

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Clint

Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Old Horizons

The truck sat forgotten in among the trees of the shelter belt that had once surrounded a farm yard. It was a late arrival, having been left sometime after the house had been moved, the foundation dug up and the concrete recycled. The quonset and bins had been moved as well, while the corrals were torn down and the laneways plowed under, so that the land could be returned to crop. Someone had decided they couldn’t bear to take down the three rows of trees that encircled the old yard and at some point the truck had been left with them by parties unknown.

Wheat grew on one side of the trees and lentils on the other. Both were the latest drought resistant varieties, necessary because after a wet spring, June had turned brutally hot and that had continued on through July. The sixth year in a row of drought with no end in sight. Yet the crops showed no signs of suffering from the heat. It wasn’t just the new varieties, though that was a large part of it. The fields, like so many others in those parts, were also covered in solar panels, standing tall above the crops, adjusting their angle to the sun, providing shade to keep the little moisture that was left in the soil from evaporating away.

The gravel road that ran in front of the fields was still in good condition, though it was empty now more often than not. Most of the farm sites that had populated the road as it wound its way north from the highway had also been turned back to crop land, the result of consolidation that always followed the arrival of more efficient equipment and techniques. First it had been tractors replacing horses, then decade after decade of larger and more precise equipment, enabling more bountiful harvests even in the face of continuous drought. The few people left now farmed vast sections of land, but with the depopulation brought on by their own consolidation they had moved to be nearer to town, which itself was shrinking. Some had even moved farther away, there being little need to stay close at hand.

Automated drones handled most of the day to day work in the fields now, making daily passes to measure and record everything. They were nimble enough to be able to target herbicide directly onto any weeds that grew up and could even target pesticides as well. Seeding and harvest was largely automated as well, with fields well mapped. The work there was in transporting the equipment to the field. Once it was there and set up they needed only to keep an eye on operations on their phone.

The drones paid no mind to the truck or the trees surrounding it. They were not part of the field and were therefore irrelevant. If the truck had been left there as a message it was one that was ignored. But they were not the intended recipient. There were still margins, however narrow and restricted, where the old ways still persisted, for whoever might be looking for those spaces. And there was always someone who was, driven by romantic, possibly foolish, ideas who would spot an old truck sitting useless among some trees and would lose themselves out in the deep parts of the Quarter chasing some forgotten horizon.

Sojourners Cycle Sale: Ending Soon

Posted on October 18, 2019 by Clint

With the publication of the final volume of the Sojourners Cycle, The Sojourner, the rest of the series is on sale until October 25:

The Forgotten: $1.99

The Apostate: $1.99

The Acolyte: $1.99

The Double: $1.99

David Aeida, sub-Regent of the Church of Regents, cannot remember anything about who he is. But he finds himself in the middle of a vicious conflict between the Church and a guild, the Society of Travelers that patrols the crossings in the multiverse. Both will stop at nothing to gain whatever knowledge he possesses. Most dangerous of all, is the implacable hunter, known only as the Seeker, who has his own reasons for wanting to find Aeida.

Born out of the chaos that followed the arrival of the Society of Travelers in its universe, the Church of Regents has as its sacred mission to find the one true universe, of which all others are but reflections. However, the Society has outlawed anyone from crossing among the universes, and will do anything in its power to stop the Church from following its mission.

Laila Johar has been at the center of that conflict for years, divided in her loyalties. One of the chosen of the Church’s founder De Gofroy and wife of the current Grand Regent Molijc, she also might be working with the Society of Travelers to destroy the faith. For betrayal and lies are at the heart of both the Church and the Society, forever locking them in a dance of desire and guilty, love and revenge, rage and despair, with consequences for all the universes.

The Sojourner is available now to now

Now Available: The Sojourner

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Clint

The stunning conclusion to the Sojourners Cycle is here:

THE SOJOURNER

SCIENCE FICTION

CLINT WESTGARD

The Church of the Regents is dead, its followers arrested by the Society of Travelers or gone to the winds. Laila Johar flees the wreckage left behind, accompanied by the body that was once hers, the half-thing Ana Arajuano who she failed to protect, and a woman, Suon, whose love she cannot return. David Aeida is gone, held at bay by Acolyte drugs, but in his place are dreams that are far too real, of people in other universes, the meaning of which Laila cannot begin to understand.

There is no escaping the Church or her own past though. The Seeker returns, demanding she make good on their agreement, and discover, once and for all, the mole the Society of Travelers placed at the heart of the Church. But that discovery pales in comparison to what she soon learns. For Laila has an unwanted part to play in an ancient struggle over who will rule the crossings between the universes and all that lie between them.

In the stunning conclusion to the Sojourners Cycle Laila will be faced with a terrible choice, one that will decide her fate and humanity’s.

Available Now

Sojourners Cycle Sale

Posted on September 25, 2019 by Clint

With the coming publication of the final volume of the Sojourners Cycle, The Sojourner, on September 30, the rest of the series is now on sale for a short time:

The Forgotten: $1.99

The Apostate: $1.99

The Acolyte: $1.99

The Double: $1.99

The Sojourner is available now to pre-order

Excerpt: The Sojourner Part 3

Posted on September 18, 2019 by Clint

In advance of the publication of The Sojourner on September 30, here is a short excerpt:

I am sitting alone on the deck of our lodge, legs propped up on another chair, looking down the ridge at the river valley and the towering mountains on the other side, when a car pulls into the main yard by the office building. A man and a woman get out and linger by the door, which is locked. Neither of them speaks, though they share glances. They do not appear to notice me, and I go very still, blending into the background of the cedar planking on the deck.

Michael, the proprietor, appears on an ATV five minutes later, all smiles, no doubt having seen them arrive. He brings the couple inside the office, and I use the opportunity to slip inside our chalet, watching intently from behind the blinds of our kitchen window. My self materializes beside me, a blank look on my face.

“Go away,” I say, not glancing at me. My self heads to the door to go out to the deck. “Not outside,” I say before the door is opened. My self turns and goes back to the living room, no expression crossing its face. Continue reading →