Pecos Bill

I often respond to just this sort of question and give opinions and advice on other people's stories so I thought it would be interesting to see what sort of response I received for posting one of my own. The sample below is the opening of a short story I have contracted to write as part of an anthology. It is medieval/fantasy and will be somewhat dark. There's not enough posted below to really give you a sense of the storyline so I won't bother with that, just please give your opinions and advice as to how it reads, how I can make it better, and whether or not the opening grabs you enough to keep you reading. Thanks.

The old man was dying; we had no doubts about that. He’d been doing it for days but now his last breaths were close at hand. He’d been a great man in his day; I’d been told that all my life. To me he was the crazy old guy who kept goats on the upper slopes who paid me and my sister to do his work. To my grandfather and those of his generation he was a hero, but they had all died before him. Now that he was dying no one came to see him except the two of us; no one else really cared.

Not that I cared. I would miss the income from herding the goats and cutting the firewood; hard coins were difficult to come by this far out from civilization, but I cared nothing for the old man. His odd ways and quick temper had turned me off long ago and I certainly didn’t believe the exaggerated tales told about him. He was just a skinny old man with one arm who smelled like goats. What great deeds could he have done? And if he had, why was he living here in Scalville? If it had been me that saved the King’s life and slain a dragon I would have demanded a better reward than a plot of land too steep for planting and too poor for anything to survive on it except goats. I hated goats!

“It won’t be long now,” Terri solemnly intoned for at least the tenth time as she gently pushed the sweaty hair back from the old man’s brow. There were tears in her eyes. She’d loved the old man and never complained when she fixed his meals or washed his clothes. Terri said that he was like another grandfather. I barely remember our real grandfathers but Terri was older than me. At seventeen she was old to still be unmarried in our village; here most girls were wed by fifteen. Suitors had come from all over the valley as she was far and away the most beautiful girl around, but she’d not been interested; not so long as she had the old man to care for.

“I just don’t have time for a husband right now. Who would take care of Sir Hugh?” she’d explain, making mother cry and father angry. Father didn’t believe the stories about the old man either and really wanted the bride-price he’d demanded of the potential suitors. A young ox would improve all our lives greatly, allowing us to clear and plant more land.

Socialized healthcare is a terrible mistake but so many people seem enamoured of it or a government ran socialized health insurance. Why don't people understand that this will drive up the costs for everyone and make it more difficult to obtain? People in Canada cross the border into the U.S. daily to use our healthcare system and people in Great Britain die waiting for Cat scans. Socialism has never worked; yet many people here seem to think it's the way to go.