by Andy Monk
“And Mr Carson will come running to confirm matters?”
“He is a most diligent man and my father-in-law’s lawyers pay very generous fees to his firm to ensure that he remains that way.”
“You would think your father-in-law didn’t trust you?”
“He just wanted to ensure his daughter was looked after, which I have done to the best of my abilities for many years.”
“And now you have had enough?”
Furnedge fought down his irritation, it was never good to show such a thing, least of all with someone who was going to the trouble of helping you murder your wife.
“We have discussed all this before.”
“I know that Guy…” the Mayor placed a hand on his arm and squeezed it gently, he supposed it was intended to feel reassuring, but he felt like a piece of meat on a butcher’s slab being tested for tenderness before purchase, “…I just want to know that you are sure. It is one thing to desire a death; it is much more to actually do it.”
“I know what I want. Lorna has suffered long enough. This is a mercy for her.”
“And for you.”
Furnedge dropped his eyes and replied in a small voice, “I deserve to be released from my suffering too.”
“And to reap your reward? To receive your due for all the care you have bestowed upon your ailing tormented wife.”
“Indeed!!”
The Mayor nodded and pursed his lips, “Then go and sit and I will do what is required.”
“She… will not suffer, will she?”
“We all suffer Guy… but no, she will not wake from her sleep, from her dreams. She will pass restfully and you will have your heart’s desire. Your freedom and her money.”
“And Molly,” Furnedge hissed, “that’s the most important thing!”
“Of course…” the Mayor nodded, before slowly backing out of the room and closing the door gently in Furnedge’s face.
He stood there, listening to his heart pound in his chest and the Mayor’s boots squeak upon the stairs.
“At last…” he whispered raising a shaking hand to his face, “thank God at last.” That’s what his rasping trembling voice said anyway.
Though he knew who he was thanking wasn’t God at all.
The Farmer
Cece was waiting for him outside the livery; she was wearing loose pants, a baggy shirt with a satchel slung across her chest and a wide brimmed hat tied under her chin. Her blonde hair was platted into a long ponytail. It was about as an unfeminine a look as she could have chosen.
To Sye she looked almost unbearably cute.
He smiled at her and hoped he’d managed to wash the stink of cow dung off. He’d been up before dawn to milk the herd and get the chores he couldn’t leave done, then wash, wolf down breakfast and ride into town for 10am; all without, he hoped, looking like he’d been dashing about like a madman.
“Morning,” he grinned, trying not to sound too breathless. He’d had to ride hard to get here on time and had only reined in his horse as they’d galloped up the Tear towards Pioneer Square.
“Morning,” Cece replied, tipping back her hat a little as she looked up at him.
“Ready for a ride?” Sye tried not to wince at his own words, which sounded both utterly inane and slightly lewd. Small talk had never been one of his strengths, which was something he put down to spending far too much of his time entirely in the company of cows.
Cece answered by hoisting herself smoothly up into the saddle.
“So, where do you want to go?”
“North.” Cece said, with a purposeful nod.
“What’s out there?”
“You tell me,” she replied with a little shrug as she wheeled her horse around.
“Grass, cows, farms… pretty much the same as every other direction.”
“Perfect.”
“We could ride out to Hayliss’ Creek,” Sye offered tentatively.
“What’s that?”
“Just a little stream, it’s kinda pretty though…”
“Is it North?”
“More to the east I guess.”
Cece stared ahead as they trotted down Main Street, “I want to go north.”
Sye had long ago come to the conclusion that girls could be quite strange in the way their minds worked, even more so than cows in fact, so he didn’t argue. He’d brought a picnic and thought Hayliss’ Creek was a lovely spot to eat, drink, laugh, look into each other’s eyes and… who knows what else while listening to the water bubble over the smooth grey rocks that were scattered along that part of the creek.
He felt a momentary irritation that his idea had been dismissed out of hand, he’d been thinking of what to do and where to go from the moment Cece had agreed to ride out with him, however, it didn’t actually matter. He pushed his irritation aside. The sun was shining, he was with the most beautiful girl in town and he didn’t have to milk another cow until tomorrow. Cece could go anywhere she wanted and he’d happily follow her, because, just for once, no less deserving fellow was going to spoil things for him.
*
“What do you know about the Mayor?” Cece asked out of the blue.
They’d left Hawker’s Drift behind them, the town no more than a smudge on the hazy horizon. Cece had said little, she hadn’t been rude or dismissive, but she seemed preoccupied. Several times she half swivelled in her saddle to look back along the road.
“Don’t really know him.”
“But you know of him?”
“Well, yeah, of course, he’s the most important guy around here. If he needs advice on shovelling cow dung I’m his first port of call, but otherwise…”
Cece nodded and Sye looked away when she didn’t smile at his little joke. Maybe he shouldn’t overplay the shit shovelling gags; not all girls saw the funny side of cow dung after all.
“Has he been Mayor long?”
“Oh, forever…”
“Forever?”
Sye laughed at the way Cece was frowning at him as if he’d meant really forever.
“Well, not literally of course, but since before I was born.”
“And how old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“And how long was he Mayor before you were born?”
“I dunno.”
Cece pursed her lips in thought.
“Why all the interest in the Mayor?” Sye asked.
“I had to go and sing for him last night – just curious.”
Sye looked ahead along the road cutting through the grass. The land to the left belonged to the Skellings, a miserable bunch of in-bred halfwits according to his Ma, and a small herd of their cows were grazing close to the road. If Sye didn’t know better, he would have thought they were sniggering.
“Oh…” Sye eventually managed to say “…how did that go?”
“He was…”
Charming? Witty? Handsome? Rich? Not whiffing of cow shit?
“…a bit odd.”
“Really!?”
Cece looked across at him, “You haven’t noticed?”
“I’ve barely spoken to the man.”
Apart from discussing you anyway.
“Not even at election time when he’s whoring for votes?”
Sye didn’t entirely approve of that phrase, but he let it pass, “No, we live outside the town limits, so we wouldn’t get a vote; even if there ever was an election.”
“The Mayor isn’t elected?”
“Sure he is. Unopposed.”
“Nobody ever stands against him?”
“What would be the point? He’s popular, town’s doing well… would be a waste of everyone’s time.”
“Hard to believe nobody’s ever stood against him.”
“Well, Hogg Perkins did stand years ago; I was just a boy then so didn’t pay much attention.”
“And the Mayor won I take it?”
“Oh, no one got to vote. Perkins dropped dead of a heart attack a week before polling day; died in his s
leep apparently. Guess the stress of the election must have been too much for him.”
“Must have been…” Cece muttered.
“So, how’d it go with the Mayor?” Sye jumped in to the pause between Cece’s questions.
“Fine.”
The Mayor had seemed so keen to help him, had it all been some kind of ruse? A distraction while he seduced Cece for himself? But why would he do that? Sye was no competition after all.
“Did he like your singing?” Sye prompted.
“I think so.”
“Did you stay long?”
“A couple of hours I suppose, I sung, they drunk, I went back to Jack’s they… did whatever.”
“They?”
“The Mayor and his… companion, Felicity.”
“The Mayor has a companion?”
“I got the impression he has several. You haven’t seen her?”
“Probably have around town, but don’t know her.”
“She’s quite striking.”
“Really?”
“And a little unhinged, I think.”
“I’d heard stories… about women, but…”
“What stories?”
“That he had women in his house and his ranch… you know, women, like the girls in Jack’s, but more… expensive.”
“You mean whores?”
Sye shifted in his saddle, he wished she’d stop using that word.
“Dunno, I don’t really listen to gossips.”
“The Mayor has a ranch?” Cece asked abruptly, “Whereabouts is it?”
Sye looked glumly ahead.
“North of town…”
The Doctor
“Is she dead?”
It seemed an unnecessary question to Dr Rudi, given Lorna Furnedge’s pale grey complexion, cold flesh and wide, lifeless eyes. However, more than anything, it was the complete silence that pointed to the poor woman’s passing. During his increasingly frequent visits to attend her, Mrs Furnedge had never been silent. Even when she wasn’t complaining about her ailments, her husband or the world in general, the rasping dry breath that rattled around her chest before escaping the confines of her body, usually accompanied by a cloud of smoke, was enough to assure you that she was very much alive.
Now there was only silence.
“She is far beyond my help,” Dr Rudi sighed as he straightened up.
Guy Furnedge stood in the doorway; he was wringing a handkerchief in his hands and looked only marginally less pale than his deceased wife.
I would have thought he’d be doing cartwheels.
Dr Rudi clamped down on that particular thought. The ties that bound people together could be unfathomable sometimes. Lorna had been a difficult woman, actually that was being polite, he could think of quite a few words that would have been more accurately descriptive, but Dr Rudi had never liked to speak ill of the dead.
“I… found her this morning… I was bringing her coffee…”
Dr Rudi looked down at the shattered cup and the dark stain upon the entangled vines weaved into the thick rug at the foot of the bed.
“She must have passed during the night.”
“Did she suffer?”
“It would have been quick.”
Furnedge nodded and wrung his handkerchief some more, “Better that she passed in her sleep I suppose. Best way to go… if there is such a thing.”
Dr Rudi was going to point out people didn’t tend to sleep with their eyes wide open, but there was no need to dissuade Furnedge of that small comfort. Instead, he reached down and passed his hand over her eyes to close the lids.
“Indeed…” Dr Rudi muttered.
She was very cold.
“When did you last see your wife… alive?”
“Yesterday… I came home at lunch time to check on her. She was unwell. Amy and I had to carry her to bed.”
“You didn’t think to call me?”
Furnedge grimaced and pulled off his spectacles, “It wasn’t the kind of illness you could have helped her with.”
“What kind of illness was it then?”
“The bottle of bourbon by lunchtime kind of illness.”
“I see…”
“Her drinking has been much worse lately… I should have seen this coming… I should…”
Dr Rudi walked over to Furnedge and patted his arm, “There is no point blaming yourself. There is only so much abuse the human body can take. If she was drinking that much then this was just… inevitable I’m afraid.”
“But I could have stopped her drinking…”
“I knew your wife… I don’t think anyone could have stopped her doing what she wanted to do.”
Furnedge shrugged, he didn’t look entirely convinced. Poor chap probably blamed himself; it was the natural thing to do. People liked to assign blame to such things, whether to themselves or to others. Of course, in reality, it was just a combination of God’s will and Lorna’s own demons, which Dr Rudi guessed were considerable.
“So it was the drink, in the end?”
People liked to know too, even if it did them no good. They liked to think he knew too, which was a notion he never liked to disabuse them of.
“In part… a heart attack is what I suspect. Brought on by the abuse of hard liquor.”
“Is that what you will put on the death certificate?” Furnedge asked, he looked a little odd without his spectacles on, blinking at him like some little critter caught in the open.
“A heart attack, that’s all I shall say… there’s no need to mention the liquor.”
“Oh… yes. I’d appreciate that Klaus. Thank you.”
“I’ve seen enough of em after all.”
“You have?”
Dr Rudi turned back to the bed, “Yes, we seem to get a lot of bad hearts in Hawker’s Drift.”
“We do?” Furnedge’s voice wavered a little. Dr Rudi hoped he wasn’t going to start crying. He always found that difficult.
He stared down at Lorna’s lifeless face, “Indeed we do. The human heart can be a frail vessel; all manner of things can stop it dead. Liquor abuse is one reason; overwork, worry, bad food, simple wear and tear can all cause heart attacks too.”
“And do we have a lot of that here?”
“So it would seem, for example, your old boss, Mr Fitzsimmons, he keeled over in the street as I recall.”
“He was quite elderly.”
“Always seemed fit as a fiddle to me… just goes to show.”
“Show what?”
“That you can never tell. There’s something out there waiting for all of us I suppose. There but for the Grace of God after all…”
“Indeed.”
He heard Furnedge shuffle a little in the long silence that followed as he remained motionless staring at Lorna Furnedge’s corpse.
“So… what happens now?”
“I’ll let Charlie Molloy know, he’ll pop by later to collect the body. You’ll need to make the funeral arrangements with him. He is the only undertaker in town after all.”
“Of course…”
The front door opened and shut with a bang.
“Amy… I’ll have to let her know,” Furnedge muttered, “she’s our domestic help.”
He didn’t need to explain, Dr Rudi knew her well enough, having to wait on Lorna Furnedge ensured the poor girl had the sympathy of the whole town.
“Best you go down and tell her, there is no need for her to see the body.”
“Yes, it wouldn’t do to upset the poor girl unnecessarily.”
“I will finish up here.”
Furnedge hovered, before nodding his agreement and hurrying downstairs.
Dr Rudi lifted up the sheet to cover Lorna’s face. Her cold dead eyes were staring up at him. Strange, he was sure he’d closed them. Not that it mattered; they would never see anything again either way. Her features were not entirely slack. Her mouth was slightly open, not hanging agape, but her lips were pulled back to reveal her yellowed teeth, her eyes were unnaturall
y wide too, perhaps that was why the lids had rolled back up. In fact, her eyes seemed to be slightly bulging. It almost looked like she had died halfway through a stifled scream.
Liquor abuse, overwork, worry, bad food, simple wear and tear could all cause a heart to stop. So too could terror.
He pulled the sheet up over the poor woman’s face and tried not to think too much about that. After all, it wasn’t the first time death had etched such an expression onto a corpse’s face.
Not in this town anyway…
The Gunslinger
“Where’d you find this?” John X asked. Before Amos could reply the gunsmith had hurried over to the window and flipped the CLOSED sign over.
“Actually, don’t answer that!” He barked, returning to whip the remains of the rifle off the counter and dropping it unceremoniously into something that sounded like a large metal bin. “I really don’t want to know!”
“At a crossroads north of town.”
“I said I didn’t want to know.”
“Next to the carcasses of a horse and two mules.”
“You having s trouble with your hearing?”
“Think they’d been there a couple of weeks.”
“Best see Dr Rudi; he might be able to help you with that.”
“In other words, about the same time Tom McCrea died.”
John X continued to stare at him, his lips pressed into a thin dark line and his gnarled fingers splayed on the counter top.
“At least you didn’t say murdered.”
Amos shrugged, “About the same time he was helped off his horse.”
John X rolled his eyes, “Why are you bringing this shit to me?”
“Is that the rifle you sold to Tom McCrea?”
“Hard to say.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s just a burnt up piece of junk; I sold Tom a rifle of this type, but I can’t say if it’s this specific rifle.”
“You sold many other’s like this?”
“One or two…”
“We both know that is the rifle you sold to Tom…”
“Amos, what does it matter?”
“A man died.”
“Men die all the time and most of em, just like Tom McCrea, you don’t know from squat. And frankly, if you had known him I doubt you’d have been mightily taken with him. Let’s at least be honest, this ain’t got anything to do with justice for Tom. Has it?”