This Long Silence: Prologue
Prologue
Morgan Falls boasts a population of six hundred and seventy-two. It's the largest small town for at least a hundred miles in each direction, crops tangling as far as the eye can see and leaving vast, open spaces within Morgan County.
When the town first rose from the ground, farming was a way of life, not a job. Every year, boys were recruited by tired fathers and hungry mouths. Duty became pride, and so they stayed and sowed the earth. They built a community.
Each decade, fewer farms remain in operation, but the families stay the same. Blue collar workers and office folk travel into the far reaches of the county - and sometimes beyond - for an honest wage. Brothers and sisters teach each other through the years, tutoring and double-checking homework while dinner bubbles on aging stovetops. Fathers head indoors to a full table and lead the family in grace before each meal, clothes soiled but hands washed.
The Morgan High Mustangs are the best entertainment in town; football on cool fall nights and baseball on bright Saturday mornings draw the entire county together. Solidarity is shared within every home when the teams bring home a conference championship and tears go unspoken when they don’t. Academics aren’t a point of pride but a fact of life; students pass every year but there are few mathletes or English scholars. Clubs are more social than educational, and despite the staff’s best efforts, extracurricular activities fall off each semester.
And for those who have no want for sports or school clubs, the county mall - a handful of shops operating in a space that could hold a dozen - is just twenty miles outside of town. It’s gone south along with the local economy, but stores keep it open for weekend tourists or teenagers looking for a place to hang out.
If you get a job in public service, residents nod and smile more often. It’s not a written rule, just an unspoken tradition. It’s what Jensen noticed when he first wore a uniform. Beyond the added admiration when they say Sheriff, Jensen’s discovered that the entire town gives him a second or two at the end of each of his sentences to ensure he’s done and a few feet of distance when they approach.
He accepts the respect just as he honors his duty. These people give him space and he returns the favor. So long as they don’t dig too deep into his life, he lets them live theirs.
He wears the badge with pride. And always with a subtle smile, always with a thank you, ma’am and a very well, sir. He knows enough to do so.
It wasn’t always that way.
As a young boy, Jensen was never without a broad smile and a spark to his eyes. He followed his father through the fields, hauling corn and cabbage heads, and patted the cows while his big brother Josh milked each one. Nearly every dinner ended with his mother's homemade pie smeared across a white saucer.
Eventually, he escaped to the pastures with boys and girls his own age. Their time was innocent with games of tag until moonlight was all they had. But soon enough, it turned into raucous behavior when they hit high school and Steve Carlson hijacked the Parsons’ riding lawnmower and crafted his own crop circles in their fields. Or when Christian Kane became the Pastor’s greatest nightmare, sneaking the man’s daughter out at night while Jensen stood on the doorstep and asked about God and perdition and repentance then left with a broad smile, forgetting most of what had been said by the time he found his friends on the next patch of farmland.
As decades passed, many of the wheat and cornfields have been abandoned, leaving acres of nothingness. Just big, wide open spaces between the six towns that make up Morgan County. Most farmhouses sit empty as families have escaped for something more.
Josh married Suzanne Elker, the high school principal’s daughter, and swept her half a state away with the promise for more than farming. His little sister Mackenzie ran off to Chicago for college and Big City Living.
Halfway through his senior year, Jensen enrolled in the Army intent to see another world before he’d have to return to the fields, and the service was the best bet in town.
While he stood guard in the dusty air of Iraq, Jensen learned his parents had, too, gotten out. Their exit came in the form of an eighteen-wheeler that jack-knifed on Interstate 4.
Following four years of service, Jensen returned to Morgan Falls and stayed when no other Ackles did, or could. Despite invitations to join his siblings in new states, he remained on the farm, selling off the more valuable patches of land and keeping to himself in the main house.
Odd jobs carried him for a year or so until he felt the pull of duty and walked into the Sheriff’s office. Twenty-four and now restrained, beaten down by the desert and the loss of family and friends, he nodded at the deputy and asked for an application. Ten years later, Jensen was pinned Sheriff of the biggest town as far as the eye could see.
The population of Morgan Falls dwindles with each generation, and crops suffer. Those who are still here are comfortable, resigned to keeping their worn-in homes on the earth they’ve built. Pride keeps them here, even while many talk about a greater life waiting for them beyond the county lines.
But soon, Jensen learns that Morgan Falls will disappear completely.
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