The Burden of Souls (Hawker's Drift Book 1)

by Andy Monk

  “There’s a stillness about him…” as they turned down Baker’s Street Amos looked back for the first time at the two deputies who were casually pursuing them. The low full moon side lit them, their faces no more than suggestions beneath the shadows of their hats, “…but it’s just like a mirrored lake reflecting back the sky. It hides what lies beneath.”

  “Which is?” She prompted when Amos once more fell to silence.

  “Beneath the stillness is something… something that is slithering, snickering, jabbering, howling…”

  “Fuck. You’re right, I don’t want to know.”

  She fought down the urge to look back up Baker’s Street.

  “You sound like one of those old women at a county fair, the kind that tells you you’re going to meet a tall, handsome stranger and other unlikely shit.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Amos snorted a little laugh, “…my mother did that.”

  “Oh fuck. Really?”

  “Madame Mysterio.”

  “Your name is Amos Mysterio?”

  “That was just a stage name for her act. Obviously. She told fortunes, prophesised the future. That kinda stuff.”

  “Did she get anything right?”

  “Let’s just say we didn’t have much money to get by with when I was a kid.”

  “Like most people I guess…”

  The little house she’d rented with Tom was halfway down the hill; she stopped by the gate in the low picket fence.

  “Here we are… will you come in?” Molly asked, wishing she didn’t feel quite so much like a sixteen year old coming home from her first barn dance.

  “I… shouldn’t…” Amos stuck his hands into his pockets and made no move to leave.

  Did she actually want this? Did it even matter one way or the other? If he could get her out of this mess… and even if he couldn’t she didn’t want to be alone in the house with nothing but memories of Tom and the knowledge that Blane and his friend were outside.

  “Don’t worry about my reputation.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Molly-”

  “Please…” she could see two figures taking up position in the shadows a little along the street. Amos followed her gaze, “…I just don’t want to be alone.”

  “I could just shoot them?”

  “That’s very kind of you to offer, but I’m already up to my fanny in shit.” She couldn’t help but giggle at Amos’ expression, despite everything, “Sorry, I’ve got a fucking awful mouth on me.”

  “It’s very endearing. Really. Reminds me of my mother…”

  “Prophesising and cussing?”

  Amos put on a deep and foreboding voice, “I see you are about to come into a great fortune, now cross my hand with silver or fuck off.”

  “I’m beginning to see why you had such an impoverished childhood.”

  He smiled, but it quickly faded when he gazed up the hill at the two figures that were now lounging against the side of a house, he appeared to be thinking again, he seemed to do a lot of that.

  “I’ll sleep downstairs and watch the door for you. Just in case.”

  Sure, you can sleep downstairs…

  If he wanted to think he was a gentleman that was fine, he could blame it on her in the morning.

  She nodded and turned away, her heart was thudding hard, had he noticed that? She felt queasy too, and not solely due to the amount she’d drunk. She wasn’t sure if sex was one of the recommended ways of dealing with grief, but it might take her mind off things for a while, and she was pretty sure that, at the very least, she would feel safe in his arms while she slept.

  Once they were inside she fumbled in the darkness to find the lantern. Molly imagined returning to the house alone and wondering if Blane’s colleagues were already there waiting for her in the shadows.

  Be careful Molly, those two men want to kill you…

  She shut her eyes against the light as the lantern flared into life. Nobody is going to kill you tonight. Amos is here, you’re safe, he’ll protect you. Whoever he was…

  She picked up the lantern and looked round for Amos, she had hoped he would have followed in the darkness. She’d hoped his hands would have been on her before she’d even got to the lantern to be perfectly honest.

  He was still standing by the door, holding his hat before him. Looking awkward. Actually he looked more than awkward, he looked down right terrified.

  You sure this guy can protect you?

  He’d faced the Mayor and Blane down without so much as a blink, but being alone with one pretty drunk, fairly horny, extremely vulnerable widow seemed to unnerve him enough to make him look scratchy in his own skin. Eventually, he followed her into the drawing room.

  Perhaps he’s wondering if I’ll scream and cry rape if he tries to kiss me.

  Molly put the lamp down on the little table by the fireside rocking chair. She ran a hand through her long hair, smiled coyly at Amos and then wondered if he’d scream and cry rape if she tried to kiss him.

  “Would you like a drink? I have some whiskey left somewhere. I think…”

  Amos shook his head and nodded towards the rug she was standing on. “No thanks ma’am I’ll just settle myself down here while you go to bed.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Sorry… I don’t want to be overly familiar. It’s your home and we only just met.”

  “It’s Molly. I’m not a fucking dried up spinster – and you can be as familiar as you like!”

  Amos shuffled his feet, then stared at them just to make sure he was shuffling them enough while wringing the brim of his hat hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.

  Oh for fuck’s sake! How much more shitty can my life get? I can’t even get fucking seduced properly anymore!

  Clearly he needed some encouragement and Molly was too tired and too drunk to want to play silly little flirting games for hours. She walked over and stood before him, his brown eyes were big and almost fearful. He couldn’t possibly still be a virgin, could he?

  “I don’t want you to sleep on the floor,” she said, holding his gaze and placing her hand on his left arm. He almost squirmed at her touch.

  Amos looked around, “If you have a couch…”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she reached up to kiss him, but before her lips could find his he had staggered wildly backwards, dropping his hat and colliding with the wall. She stood aghast for a moment, had he seen something in her eyes?

  “I’m sorry,” Amos said, looking around the room as wildly as a rabid dog trapped in a corner, “I just can’t do that!”

  Molly shut her eyes, shook her head and bit her bottom lip. She hadn’t often been rejected by men. Amos was trying to say something, but it wasn’t really registering and she didn’t trust herself to say anything either. She’d already had one screaming fit of profanities today and she didn’t need another. Instead, she just held up a hand to silence him.

  When she realised that nothing coherent was going to come out of her mouth, she stormed out of the room, took the stairs two steps at a time and slammed the bedroom door shut after her.

  “Well, that was humiliating…” she muttered finally, sitting on the edge of the bed with her face in her hands waiting for the front door to close after Amos.

  She wanted to crawl into bed and erase throwing herself at Amos from history, but like all the other mistakes she’d made in her life, Molly knew that wasn’t possible.

  After a few minutes she managed to regain a little composure, she couldn’t hear anything downstairs, but she was pretty sure that Amos hadn’t yet slunk away from the sex-crazed widow’s house of vice.

  She went to the cupboard to fetch a couple of blankets and a spare pillow for him. She was big enough to handle rejection magnanimously, she decided. As Molly bent down she brushed against Tom’s old coat. She reached out to stroke it, then pulled it to her face. There was no trace of her husband’s scent; it just smelt of old leather. It
was the jacket he’d always worn before they’d come to Hawker’s Drift; old, cracked and faded.

  A sob bubbled up her throat and she found herself on her knees crying softly, her fingers caressing the seam.

  “Damn you Tom,” she muttered, “how can I miss you so much when I never even loved you?”

  She let the jacket fall away, pulled out the blankets and a flat sorry pillow that was her only spare and sank back onto the floor cradling them. The pillow smelt musty and the blankets were itchy on her skin.

  She wiped her eyes and felt foolish. Was she crying for her dead husband or because the man downstairs wouldn’t jump into the bed that still faintly carried the scent of his sweat?

  Wearily she pulled herself to her feet. Perhaps she should ask Amos to leave. It had been a stupid idea to bring him home. Disrespectful to Tom, who’d never so much as looked at another woman and who’d loved her completely with his big, stupid, soft heart.

  She crossed reluctantly to the window and looked down the street. It looked deserted at first, till she saw a fleeting orange glow flare in the shadows. Someone was smoking. Someone who was loitering in the darkness. Watching her home.

  No, she decided, it hadn’t been a mistake. Whatever else, Amos made her feel safe. He wasn’t scared of Blane, or the Mayor. That was something. At least.

  She took the bedding downstairs, half afraid that Amos might have slipped away whilst she’d been sobbing on the floor like a broken-hearted schoolgirl. She found him sitting in the rocking chair, his fingers gripping the arm rests tightly enough to whiten his knuckles. He didn’t look at her. His eyes were fixed ahead and his complexion had become ashen.

  “Amos…?”

  “I’m fine Molly,” he glanced up at her, “just leave the blankets on the floor. Thank you.”

  “Are you sick?”

  “It’s not your fault Molly. Just go to bed. You’ll be safe.”

  His voice was a tortured rasp, and she took half a step forward towards him, but he just shook his head and looked away.

  She shrugged and put the blankets on the floor before retreating back upstairs.

  She really did pick the strangest men…

  The Gunslinger

  He pretended not to notice Molly watching him, and when she slipped back out of the room without saying anything he continued to stare out of the kitchen window.

  He should have known. Then again, perhaps he had? Perhaps some twisted part of his soul still wanted to know what it felt like for a beautiful woman to be attracted to him.

  Perhaps.

  Or, maybe, it was just a blind spot. He could look into Blane’s eye and know, beyond doubt, what writhed around inside him, but he hadn’t been able to figure out that a lonely, frightened, vulnerable woman might want him. Want him for sex, for protection, for comfort, for a way out of the hole her husband had left her in.

  Yeah, that had been a real tough one for him to notice.

  The tidy little kitchen looked out on to a small yard, it too was neatly kept. There were vegetables, a clothes line, a little outhouse and a fire blackened metal bucket with what looked like the twisted remains of an umbrella sticking out of it. It was quiet, peaceful in the morning sunshine. It was normal and he wished it was his.

  He should leave. Pay his bills, get his horse and ride out of town. Life, for want of a better word, was easier when he was alone. There was trouble here, and he didn’t just mean Molly kind of trouble. He’d felt it for a while now, the way the air turns a certain way before a thunder storm; heavy and sticky. He’d been trying to ignore it. He wanted to rest and get a little peace for a while. Just for a week or two. Small comforts away from his endless pursuit of a man he knew he would never find.

  Then he’d met the Mayor and Blane last night…

  Blane was a killer, the Mayor… he was something else. He’d looked into that man’s strange restless eye and had seen… what exactly?

  He wasn’t sure and that made him uneasy.

  At times he could look someone in the eye and know them intimately, know their thoughts, fears, intentions, and ambitions. Know everything. More often he caught only tiny fragments, memories reflected in the splinters of broken mirrors. Occasionally he saw nothing but a bloodshot eyeball. But it was usually one or the other. It was something that he’d been able to do from childhood, in a vague unrefined way, but since Severn had left him for dead it had become more focused, more… powerful?

  But The Mayor? He’d been different; he’d never experienced anything quite like it. He came away with no sense of the man at all… no sense other than a yawning vast darkness and the distant echoes of screams…

  “Morning…” Molly said in a way that was too bright and cheerful to be entirely natural.

  “Morning,” he replied, looking back and flashing a smile to conceal his own awkwardness.

  What an Earth must she think of him after last night? Whatever it was it was preferable to the truth.

  “There’s coffee in the pot… I hope you don’t mind me helping myself?”

  “Of course not,” she shook her tousled red locks and hurried over to the stove. He returned to staring out of the window as she dragged out pouring herself a coffee for as long as possible.

  When she was done she hovered by the stove, mug cradled in both hands beneath her lips. She didn’t join him by the window or leave the room.

  After a minute or so of heavy silence Amos finished his coffee and looked over at Molly, who was still staring at him over the lip of her own mug.

  “So the Mayor wants you to work off your debts in the whorehouse then?” It seemed better to say something than nothing.

  Molly sipped her drink by way of a reply.

  He shrugged, “I kinda of figured it out, from what he said last night.”

  And from what I saw in your eyes when you tried to kiss me. Among other things.

  “You certainly know how to break an awkward fucking silence…”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get a sore fanny I’d imagine.”

  “Molly…”

  “What else can I do? I’m trapped here! I haven’t got the money to pay off Tom’s debts and I don’t know what he did with the stuff he bought on the Mayor’s dime. And I can’t even skip town with Deputy Dickhound following my scent up and down Main Street.”

  Amos pulled out a chair from under the kitchen table and sat down. Molly looked rather perplexed as if she’d been expecting him to be heading for the door as soon as politely possible. Which was probably what he should be doing. Instead, he placed his elbows on the table, interlocked his fingers and rested his chin upon his hands while he looked at Molly, with her sleep messed hair, shapeless over-sized shirt and faded work pants. He tried hard not to think about who she reminded him of.

  “Is there anywhere left to look for the stuff?”

  “Most of it could be sitting in any outhouse in town, not so many places you could keep a horse and two mules though… I’ve asked around, but nobody knows anything.”

  “Could he have put them out of town?”

  “There are plenty of ranches, farms, homesteads, but I can’t leave town. Deputy Dickhound remember?”

  “Nothing stopping me looking?”

  “Would you?” She seemed surprised. Again.

  “My horse needs some exercise. She gets skittish if she’s cooped up inside all day.”

  “Know that feeling…”

  “What exactly did your husband buy?”

  “Wait here,” Molly put down her coffee and hurried out of the kitchen.

  Amos sat back and looked out of the window, the sun was still shining; he could be out of Hawker’s Drift in an hour. Less if he hurried. He closed his eyes and imagined kissing Molly, which was a stupid and pointless thing to do.

  She returned a moment later and fanned an assortment of bills and receipts across the table.

  “A lot of stuff.”

  “No,” Molly said earnestly, resting her hands on t
he table edge opposite and looking down at him, “it’s a fucking lot of stuff.”

  Amos nodded, “Sorry ma’am, my mistake.”

  A faint little smile flittered briefly across her face, the first of the day Amos noted for no obvious reason.

  “Do you mind if I take these?”

  “Be my guest – make sure you bring them back though.”

  “Of course, you’ll need them when you settle your debt with the Mayor.”

  “Nope,” Molly shook her head as she replied earnestly, “I’ll need em when I shove em up the Mayor’s pale bony ass.”

  It was Amos’ turn to smile as he carefully folded the bills before slipping them inside his jacket as he stood up, “I guess I’d better make a start on these then.”

  “Do you want some breakfast?”

  “No, I’m fine,” he smiled, his stomach rumbling faintly at the mention of food.

  “Another time?”

  “Sure… I’ll pop by later; let you know what I’ve found.”

  “I reckon you’ll find squat, but…” she let out a long sigh, “… I’m very grateful. For everything.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They’d been edging slowly towards the door. He hoped she wasn’t going to kiss him goodbye.

  She rested her hand on the latch of the door and screwed up her face as her eyes slid past his. “I’m sorry about last night, I-”

  Amos placed his hand over the one she was still holding the latch with. Her skin was smooth and warm, he could faintly smell lavender oil and for an instant he could see her standing over her husband’s grave, alone in the pouring rain feeling guilty that she’d never loved him.

  He wanted to jerk his hand away as if he’d inadvertently picked up something glowing hot, but he didn’t want to hurt her any more than he already had, so he left his hand there and felt the memory wash over him like the rain on Tom’s grave.

  “Really, don’t apologise… it isn’t you.”

  “Well, I know that.”

  He forced a smile and let his hand slip away naturally from hers and the feeling of summer rain, anger and sadness faded to nothing.

  She opened the door for him, “I guess you’re married or something, huh?”