THE MAN WHO TOUCHED THE STARS

By

Roger Dale Trexler

©2011 Roger Dale Trexler.

For

Wayne Nicholls

He was the man who touched the stars.

His name was Constantine D’Argento, and he lived in a small one-room shack atop a mountain. His shack was so small that the villagers below could not see it, even on a clear day when the clouds were not covering the peak. It was only by his infrequent visits to the village to purchase bread and other foodstuffs with odd little pieces of gold that the villagers knew of him at all. The gold, small, yet rich pieces of ore, was uncommon in the region. When asked, he said he panned in the streams coming down the mountain. Most people didn’t believe him; the hills had been panned dry years ago. Still, some of them thought he’d found a small vein of gold in the hills. Several men had followed him on his trek back home, but he always vanished. No one could explain this, and it gave the man an almost mythical and sinister quality that made the town folk fear him. They called him “The Odd One” when he walked silently through their streets. There was also a rumor that the mountain was haunted by strange and deadly creatures. More than one hunter had been frightened off the mountain by strange, unseen things. Unearthly sounding things. Or so they said.