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

by Andy Monk

  The vase was cheap and held no sentimental value, just a little thing he’d picked up simply because he liked the way the roses wound around it. He’d always been rather fond of roses; they reminded him of his Mother’s garden. Now it was nothing at all. He must have hurled it against the wall; it would never have shattered like that if he’d just knocked it off the table.

  But why?

  There was no why of course; it was simply the Mayor’s candy. It made him do things like that. Things he couldn’t remember. Pointless, stupid things. He closed his eyes and shivered again, he wanted more already. He usually felt too disgusted with himself when he finally came back to his senses, but not this time. He wanted more already.

  He looked back to his bedside table, the little black bottle sat there. He hadn’t hurled that wretched thing against the wall of course. Inanimate, silent, unremarkable. Apart from the way it sang to him; not out loud, but in his blood, it wanted him. It wanted to be poured down his throat and to spread through his body.

  And his body wanted it too.

  He placed a bony hand on the soft spare meat of his hollow stomach. There was no pain. No bubbling, gnawing, torment. No mocking whispers of impending death echoing up from his bowels.

  That was why he drank it, wasn’t it? It took the pain away; if it kept doing that, couldn’t he live with it washing his senses away for a little while? That was just a small price to pay, wasn’t it?

  He wiped a hand across his face, freezing as he lowered it again. His fingers were smeared with blood.

  He stared at his hand, holding it out before him. The blood had reddened his fingers and nails, but there was not enough to cover his hands or lower arms with more than a few elongated smudges.

  There would be more if I’d killed someone, wouldn’t there?

  It was a strange thought. He’d never been a violent man, he couldn’t remember hurting anyone since he’d punched Bobby Henniker on the nose, but as he’d only been nine at the time and Bobby Henniker had been bullying him for months, he had long since forgiven himself that lapse.

  Preacher Stone’s gaze fell to the vase debris decorating the floor. No, he’d never been a violent man…

  He turned to the little square mirror hanging on the wall by the door. His one concession to vanity, though he’d long since tired of seeing the wizened face that lived inside it. There were vivid bloody slash marks across his chest and abdomen. Had someone attacked him in the night?

  His finger traced one of the marks running from his left shoulder down to his nipple. The skin was broken all along the wound, the cut didn’t seem particularly deep and the blood had dried to scabs. He pressed a little harder against the wound.

  It didn’t hurt at all.

  He pulled his finger away and stepped back sharply from the mirror.

  There was dried blood under his fingernails, he’d been meaning to cut them for days, but, like many of his little chores lately, he hadn’t gotten round to it.

  At least he hadn’t hurt anyone, but why had he hurt himself?

  He glanced at the little black bottle again.

  Resisting the urge to go to it, he poured water into the enamel bowl on his nightstand and used a thin sliver of unscented soap to clean the blood from his hands. He then washed his chest with a damp cloth, revealing the red slashes cut into his flesh.

  He thought of himself thrashing about in the darkness, a demented soul tearing at his own skin, and closed his eyes. Had he screamed? Had he babbled like a lunatic? Had he smashed the vase before scampering out into the square and howling at the moon like a rabid coyote?

  He guessed not. Even in the small hours someone would have noticed and he would have woken up in one of the little cells beneath Sheriff Shenan’s office. At least he lived alone; there was nobody to be woken in the night by his torment.

  Mrs Sibinski would come to clean this morning though. He glanced at the vase. That would be easy to dispose of, even if she noticed it was missing he’d just say he’d knocked it over in the night. Clumsy old man, she’d scold with a shake of her head and an exasperated smile. He liked Mrs Sibinski, she vaguely reminded him of his long dead mother; big, blustery and faintly smelling of laundry.

  Laundry?

  He checked the sheets, they smelt of sweat and forgotten dreams, but there was no blood.

  Preacher Stone straightened up and looked at the water in the wash basin that was now a dirty pink from the blood and soap. If he’d clawed himself in bed then surely there would be some blood on the sheets. So… he must have done it elsewhere?

  The image of his naked self, writhing in the square, came to him again as he hurried out of the bedroom and into his little study in the next room. Everything was as he’d left it. No damage, no blood; the letter he’d been writing to his niece in Bridgeton still sat, unfinished, upon his scuffed old roll top desk.

  He walked through to the modest drawing room that he only used to see his parishioners and listen to their problems and concerns.

  “Oh no…”

  The words escaped his lips as he balled his hands into fists and felt a despair so profound he simply wanted to curl up on the floor and sob.

  The room was littered with shreds of paper, pages of a book torn from its binding and ripped into long thin strips before being scattered like autumn leaves across the entire room.

  Preacher Stone sank to his knees and picked up the nearest shred. He didn’t need to look too closely; he already knew what it was.

  “Father’s bible,” he choked.

  The most precious thing he owned. As old and dog-eared as he was, it had been his greatest comfort. Not just from the scripture, but also from the words his father had written inside. “To my beloved William, For when I am too far away to guide you, Your loving father, James.”

  His father had died when Preacher Stone had still been a young man and barely a day had passed without him thinking of him; James Stone had been such a kind, loving and generous man.

  “A better man than I…” he muttered, letting the scraps fall from his fingers like discarded confetti.

  He pulled himself to his feet and run back into the bedroom to snatch up the little black bottle; he raised his arm above his head and held it aloft. Willing himself to smash it like he had that hapless vase. It was evil, whatever it was. Maybe it did take his pain away, maybe it did make him, briefly, feel like he was soaring above the clouds, but what else was it doing to him? What was it turning him into? A beast and a mad man, a base animal with no control, a man who would destroy his most cherished belonging, his only reminder of a man whom he had loved so deeply that he still missed him thirty years after his death.

  What else would he do if he kept taking it? What if the next time he awoke it was not just his own blood that soaked his hands, what if he found it was something even worse than a bible he’d torn to shreds in his dementia.

  His arm shook, he willed it to cast out the devil in the bottle, to smash it and let the vileness it held seep out and be gone. He sobbed and thought how disappointed his father would be if he could see what kind of a wretch his son had grown into. To see how far he had wandered from the path of righteousness, how far he had staggered away from God.

  He tried. He tried so very hard to break that awful bottle.

  Instead, he slowly crumpled to the floor and cried, for he could not do it. For if he did, he knew he’d be down on all fours, his face amongst the shards of glass desperately licking up the thick, sticky and so, so sweet candy before it could be soaked up by the floorboards.

  Eventually, without really knowing, he pulled the stopper from the neck and lifted the bottle to his lips once more…

  The Lawyer

  Lorna had passed out by the time he got home, an empty bottle of bourbon at her feet and flecks of vomit over her chin.

  “I tried to clean her up, but she just started screaming at me,” Amy explained as they stood in the doorway of the Throne Room, she looked pointedly at Furnedge, “By the way, I d
on’t get paid enough to be called a fucking dumb whore.”

  “I’m sorry… my wife is very unwell.”

  “And she’s getting worse… she never used to pass out till the evening!”

  Furnedge considered reprimanding the girl, it wasn’t an entirely appropriate way to address your employer, but he let it pass. She was, after all, quite correct.

  Instead, they half-dragged, half-carried Lorna up the stairs between them and deposited her on the large brass bed that he had used to share with her until it became too intolerable, and he’d moved into the spare room. Like many things in their marriage it hadn’t been discussed; she’d never complained about it though, which was surprising as Lorna complained vehemently about pretty much everything else.

  Lorna had mumbled a few unintelligible words as they laid her on the bed, but she hadn’t come round.

  Once they had her settled Furnedge led Amy out onto the landing and he apologised for his wife’s behaviour. Again. He placed a hand on her arm as he spoke. She was upset and frayed he could see, she had an almost sulky little pout on her face that Furnedge found terribly attractive.

  He left his hand on her arm longer than he should have done, but he enjoyed touching women, they would assume he was just being friendly, which he was, but it excited him that while he touched them he was thinking all the time about what he’d actually like to do to them. It didn’t excite him as much to touch Amy as it had Molly, but then no woman excited him as much as Molly did. Still, he yearned to find Amy’s small young tit all the same and squeeze it through her shapeless smock till she squealed…

  “Amy, I know how trying it is being here with her all day, I really do appreciate your hard work.”

  “Thank you Mr Furnedge… it is very difficult sometimes.” She was looking up at him with large brown eyes, and she hadn’t pulled away from the fingers that rested on her arm like she sometimes did. He liked that.

  “I will stay and look after her this afternoon, why don’t you take the rest of the day off. As a thank you from me…” he nodded towards the closed bedroom door “…and an apology from her.”

  “Thank you sir… that’s very kind.”

  Furnedge imagined her dropping onto her knees and showing him exactly how grateful she was, but he just nodded and let his fingers slip reluctantly from her arm, “Can you pop into my office on your way home and let Miss Dewsnap know I won’t be back today as Mrs Furnedge is unwell.”

  “Yes, of course sir, it’s on my way home,” she smiled, no doubt relieved to be given the day off. And she would remember why too.

  “My wife is unwell,” Furnedge repeated, “it is important Miss Dewsnap knows that, I wouldn’t want people thinking I am just malingering from my duties.

  “Your wife is unwell,” Amy nodded her understanding before hurrying downstairs to fetch her shawl and be off to do whatever she did when she wasn’t being shouted at by Lorna.

  Furnedge stood on the landing and smiled; he hoped Amy would get the message right, it was simple enough after all, but it was necessary because once Eudora Dewsnap had been told something then soon half the town would know too…

  *

  Furnedge sat by his wife’s bed for a while, just watching her. She was out cold. He could have been hammering Amy over the dresser and she would not have woken.

  He should have drugged her bourbon years ago.

  Taking out the little black bottle that the Mayor had given him from his pocket, he turned it over slowly in his hands. He had absolutely no idea what it was, but the Mayor had been very specific; use half the bottle, no more, no less. Do not spill any on your skin, do not inhale it and definitely don’t taste it. It had seemed thick and viscous when he’d poured into Lorna’s bourbon bottle that morning, but he didn’t inspect it too closely, despite an uncharacteristic curiosity that almost led him to wave the bottle under his nose, until he remembered the Mayor’s instructions. The little glass bottle was quite opaque and the liquid poured like syrup, making it hard to judge when he’d tipped exactly half of it into the bourbon.

  Whatever it was Lorna hadn’t tasted it, she’d polished off the entire bottle by lunch time, which was some going even by her standards.

  The Mayor had assured him it would knock Lorna out cold, though an entire bottle of bourbon would do that to most people anyway. She actually looked quite peaceful now that he’d dabbed the vomit away from her chin with a damp flannel.

  He placed his palm on her forehead; she was a little warm to the touch perhaps, but nothing unusual. He plumped up her pillows and made sure the sheets covered her slender frame then sat back down and held her hand, it was just skin and bone. All she did was drink and smoke, she had to eat occasionally he supposed, though she never did when he was in the house, and Amy had told him that as often as not she didn’t touch her lunch, unless it was to throw it at Amy if the girl had done something to upset her.

  He remembered when the touch of her hand had excited him and they’d still been blood in her veins rather than just booze and bitterness. He had loved her once; at least he thought he had. For a little while, he had believed they might actually be happy together, but he supposed she’d just concealed her resentment better back then. Blaming him for the loss of the privileged life she’d enjoyed, rather than her own actions and the father she’d driven to distraction.

  Resentment had led to bitterness, and that hellish union had begat hatred, an offspring she had succoured on bourbon until it consumed her.

  He had tried, unquestionably he had, and it hadn’t been solely for her money, not at first anyway, but he knew in reality he had given up a long time ago and accepted being trapped by their marriage of inconvenience. He should have walked away, but if he divorced her he got nothing, if he were ever unfaithful he got nothing, and if she died in unnatural circumstances he got nothing.

  Did he even actually need the money anymore? He’d done well for himself since they’d come to Hawker’s Drift, Lorna hadn’t wanted to come of course, but they’d had little choice but to move after she broke the jaw of the preacher in the last town they’d lived in.

  He’d heard the local lawyer here had been looking for a younger man to bring into the business and help out with an eye to taking over when he retired. Theo Fitzsimmons had immediately seen his potential, intelligence and appetite for hard work (so Furnedge assumed) and had given him the job. With Lorna’s money they had built a fancy new house just off Pioneer Square and, eighteen months later when Fitzsimmons had keeled over with a heart attack, the business had become his.

  Yes, things had gone well for him here, but didn’t he deserve her money? After all these years of suffering? He had given his word to her father that he would look after her and he had given his word to God that he would be her husband, he had forsaken all others, he had cared and provided for her. He had protected her from the world. As he had promised he would.

  Till death do us part…

  *

  “How is Lorna?”

  Furnedge gave a startled little cry and half rose from his comfortable chair by the unlit fire. All bar one of the candles had gone out whilst he had unexpectedly dozed and his study was encased in shadow.

  A figure stood by the door, the sole remaining candle only dusting the man with light, however, Furnedge recognised him well enough from his voice and the way he rested easily upon his cane.

  “Mr Mayor!”

  “I’m sorry I startled you.”

  “I must have fallen asleep,” Furnedge began to climb to his feet, but the Mayor waved him down.

  “I let myself in, I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it best.”

  “No, of course, you are always welcome,” Furnedge spluttered. He thought he’d locked all the doors as he hadn’t wanted to be disturbed. Obviously he hadn’t.

  “Under the circumstances…”

  “Under any circumstances.”

  The Mayor gave a slight nod of acquiescence.

  “You gave your wife the bottl
e?”

  Furnedge shifted in his chair and lowered his voice just in case Lorna might have woken up.

  “Half… just as you told me to.”

  “And?”

  “She’d drunk the whole bottle of bourbon I poured it into by lunch time, she is out cold.”

  “It has that effect, when taken to excess.”

  “What exactly is that stuff?” Furnedge could sense the weight of the little bottle in his pocket, which seemed ridiculous because it was such a small thing. Unless what he actually felt was his conscience of course.

  “Just my own little concoction. You didn’t try it did you?”

  “Why would I do that?” Furnedge rose to his feet and crossed the study before adding in a tortured little hiss, “It’s poison, isn’t it?”

  The Mayor smiled, “It is many things.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “You don’t need to…” the Mayor held out his hand, palm upturned under Furnedge’s nose, “…just give me the bottle.”

  He did as he was told, though he felt a strange nagging reluctance to drop it into the Mayor’s palm.

  “Do you still want me to do this for you?”

  Furnedge nodded, his gaze unable to rise from the little bottle dangling from his fingers towards the Mayor’s eye, “I could just give her the rest of this myself… I can…”

  “Of course you can Guy, but it takes a little more than just this…” he curled his hand around the bottle, before picking it from the lawyer’s fingers like a ripe malevolent fruit from a twisted tree.

  “It does?” Furnedge eyes snapped back to the Mayor as soon as it disappeared into the pocket of his jacket.

  “It has to look natural, doesn’t it?”

  “So her will stipulates, I don’t suppose she’s changed the one her father drafted for her before our marriage.”

  “The perfect wedding gift.”

  “He was a practical man.”

  “And this will can’t just…” the Mayor reached out and wriggled his fingers under Furnedge’s nose “…disappear?”

  “It is with Carson in Fellowes Ford.”