by Andy Monk
“Not a great deal.”
“Well, at least you’re not claiming to be some kind of justice seeking avenging angel. Something I suppose.”
I’ve spent thirteen years trying to be an avenging angel. It turned out I’m pretty crap at it…
“I just… don’t want Molly to end up in the whorehouse.”
“You’re probably in a minority there son, from what I hear she’s going to be a real takings booster for Monty Jack.”
“People have heard?”
“These kind of things get around.”
“Gonna be a lot of disappointed folk in town then.”
John X sighed and his voice softened, “You’re… fond of her, aren’t you?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Yeah it always is,” John X leaned in closer to Amos, “whatever damn thing you want to call it, be careful, fondness can get a man killed just as easily as a rifle slug in the back. Or falling off your horse…”
“You going to give me that rifle back?”
“Nope, I got a little furnace in the yard; I’m going to melt the barrel down for scrap. Only thing it’s good for.”
“It’s evidence.”
John X laughed, “You ain’t thinking of taking this to the Sheriff are you? I know you’re not that stupid.”
Amos nodded, he was right of course. There would be no trial for Tom McCrea’s murderer; justice didn’t work like that out here. Actually it didn’t much work like that anywhere. He should just concentrate on getting Molly out of here if they couldn’t raise the money to pay the Mayor off.
But then what? Where would he take her? He was used to being alone; he generally shunned the company of men let alone women. If he got her out of Hawker’s Drift he couldn’t just dump her in the next town with no money and a stolen horse to fend for herself.
Could he?
*
Mr Wizzle must have found a ride back into town as he was no longer at the crossroads. Amos glanced over as another couple of crows swooped down to join the continuing horse meat banquet. The day was roasting hot and there was not a scrap of shade to be had out here on the grass. He squinted against the glare of the sun towards the buildings he’d seen the previous day.
He nudged his horse and continued on.
Amos wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for, answers he supposed, but to what question? Was he really just trying to help Molly or was there something else? There was a wrongness about Hawker’s Drift, something vague and unfocussed, but that whispered unease had been much louder around the Mayor and his deputies. He’d visited some sorry excuses for towns during his travels and Hawker’s Drift seemed a world away from all of them. It was peaceful and prosperous, but something wasn’t right.
So what?
Did it matter? Would it help him find Severn? Would it bring him peace?
He was pretty sure the answer to all of those questions was no. So why get involved? Why be distracted from his search by a town he didn’t care about or a woman who just happened to remind him of his dead wife?
All the time he spent here Severn was getting further away, his laughter still echoing around his head, that braying, interminable, hysterical screech in his ear, spraying spittle over his cheek, his coarse stubble scratching Amos’ skin as he held his arms and one of his men pressed a pistol hard into his temple as they made him watch Megan being raped and then killed.
Amos spat.
Further away? Really? He’d found not a trace of that bastard and his merry band of killers in thirteen years, they might as well have gone to the moon for all the good his searching had done.
Perhaps that was why he was helping Molly. He just needed an excuse to give up. To admit defeat and accept Megan would never be avenged. That he would never be avenged. Better that than just ending up in some backwater saloon drinking himself into oblivion or riding on till he simply keeled over and fell off his horse through old age and exhaustion, his last memory of life being the sound of crows waiting to peck out his eyes, their hungry contemptuous caws so much like Severn’s laughter, mocking him till the very end.
Had he given up?
Amos suspected he’d given up on life a long, long time ago. Was it time to give up on Severn too? He’d had no sense of the man for years, no word, no hint, no clue, no trace. Nothing. He’d probably been lying face down in some dusty unmarked grave for a decade. If so Amos hoped his death had been slow and painful, but it gave him no sense of closure to think the bastard had died at someone else’s hands.
He’d failed Megan in so many ways and now he’d failed even to avenge her.
*
The road was barred with a gate around a third of the way to the buildings from the crossroads, which Amos could now see were too grand a pile to be just a farm.
The surrounding land didn’t appear to be farmed, the grass stretching away as far as the eye could see to the horizon. Other than a few cows slowly ploughing through it there were no other features to be seen other than the road, the distant buildings atop a gentle low rise, the gate and a simple barbed wire fence that stretched away as far as the eye could see either side of the road; that and the two horses tethered to the gate and a man who was leaning on a post with his back to Amos staring off towards nowhere in particular.
“Afternoon,” Amos said finally when the man continued to keep his back turned after he’d pulled up at the gate.
The man jumped and looked round, his attention had obviously been a long way off. It was the young farmer from the saloon, the one who was always moping around Cece.
Sye Hallows, the name came after a moment. He seemed to recognise Amos far quicker than he’d recognised him.
He didn’t look particularly pleased to see him.
“Can I help you?” Sye asked after a moment, Amos felt the only way he’d actually like to help would be to slap his horse’s ass and send them back down the road as quickly as possible.
Amos looked at the two horses. Of course, he was with Cece.
“You looking for something Mister?” Sye was leaning back on the gate trying to look nonchalant. He wasn’t making a particularly good fist of it.
“Kind of…” Amos muttered, he couldn’t see Cece around and there were few places to hide unless she was hunkered down in the grass. He dismounted and led his horse to the gate, there was a roughly painted sign affixed to the front that Sye had blocked from his view. KEEP OUT.
“Friendly folk live up there then?” Amos asked. When Sye just looked at him blankly, he nodded at the sign and then towards the buildings shimmering in the afternoon’s heat.
“Oh, the Mayor’s ranch… he likes his privacy when he’s out here I guess,” Sye peered at Amos curiously; “…you got business with the Mayor?”
“Not exactly… you ever been up there?”
“Me? No… the Mayor’s never even spoken to me.”
Amos swivelled his eyes to look at the young man as he felt the lie wash over him, “Is that so?”
Sye shrugged and looked uncomfortable. He actually wasn’t a particularly convincing liar… which was something in his favour, Amos supposed.
“I just run a little dairy farm with my Ma…” he said, truthfully this time.
“You out riding with Cece?”
Sye’s eyes narrowed, “How’d you know?”
Amos nodded towards the two tethered horses, “The larger one, the bay mare, she’s yours right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The other one is the second lamest horse in the livery… so you must be riding with Cece.”
Amos smiled at the young man’s confused expression.
“Where is she anyhow?”
“She went off to… you know.”
“Piss?”
“I guess.”
Amos nodded, “Well, I’ll stick around to say hello, then be on my way.”
Sye looked both irritated and relieved, “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
“Ladies do t
ake their time when it comes to... you know.”
“Sure…” Sye grunted “…thirty minutes already.”
“Thirty minutes?” Amos looked around, but there was nothing to see but gently swaying grass.
“Yeah, she must have a helluva bladder.”
“Seen anyone else about?”
“Nope.”
“Were you followed from town?”
“Followed? Why would anyone follow us?” Sye snorted.
Amos didn’t answer. Nobody took thirty minutes to do their business, but if anyone had grabbed Cece then Sye would have noticed them approaching. He looked back at Sye who had half turned away to pick his nose with his thumb nail.
Surely?
“Why you out here?” Amos asked.
“Are you Cece’s father or something?” He could feel the younger man’s ire rising, for some reason he felt threatened.
“Nope… just a friend.”
“And you just happened to turn up here. Today? While I’m with Cece?”
“Why would that be strange?”
“Cece wanted to come here… she must have mentioned it to you.”
“Why’d she want to come here?”
Sye shrugged, “I dunno, you’re her friend, surely she’s told you? I wanted to have a picnic at Hayliss’ Creek…” he suddenly looked rather dejected, a man who was watching a long yearned for day unraveling before his eyes and looking for someone to blame.
A less deserving fellow…
The phrase popped into Amos’ head, whatever that meant.
“She wanted to come to the Mayor’s Ranch?”
“She just wanted to ride north,” he shrugged “and here we all are…”
They stood awkwardly in silence for a minute or so, Amos trying not to feel either Sye’s resentment or his own unease. He was considering how to suggest they go and look for Cece, without it sounding like he thought the young man was a complete idiot to think a girl took more than thirty minutes to take a piss, when she suddenly emerged from the grass.
He’d been looking at the ranch, but caught her in the corner of his eye, she must have been squatting down about a hundred yards from the road, near to the barbed wire fence that cut across the grass to his left.
Perhaps he didn’t know so much about the toilet habits of girls after all.
She smiled and waved at him as she meandered back towards them, one hand pressed against her hat as the wind picked up and set the grass shimmering about her. She didn’t look entirely surprised to see him, which he was sure Sye noticed too. She was dressed much the same as before and was fumbling something into her satchel as she walked back towards them. He thought it was the thin little notebook she’d said she’d been drawing in when they’d first met, though he couldn’t be absolutely sure.
“Amos!” She beamed once she made it back to the road, for one awful moment he thought she was going to reach up and peck him on the cheek. Which he was pretty sure would be enough to make Sye explode with rage.
He settled for a nod and a touch of his hat.
“What you doing out here?”
“Just riding. You?”
“Just riding… with Sye.”
“How’d it go with the Mayor last night?” Amos asked, nodding towards the ranch in the distance.
“He’s stranger than I thought.”
“Did he do anything he shouldn’t have?”
“Are you my father?”
“That’s the second time I’ve been asked that question in the last five minutes,” he nodded towards Sye who was making a noisy show of mounting his horse, which gave him a much loftier perch for sulking.
Cece gave him a knowing smile, “He was a perfect gentleman.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I was surprised too.”
“He’s dangerous.”
“I know.”
Amos’ attention drifted off to the distant buildings, “Any particular reason you came out here to look at his ranch?”
“Who said that’s why I’m here?”
“There’s nothing else out here.”
“Pretty much the same in every direction.”
“But you wanted to go north.”
Cece glanced at Sye who was trying hard not to stare impatiently at them.
“Yeah, I wanted to go north.”
“You’re not going to tell me why are you?”
“I think we’ve already established you’re not my father.”
“It’s getting late,” Sye called.
“I’d better be going, see you around Amos,” she grinned.
“Just be careful around the Mayor, huh?”
“I am,” she half turned away, before looking back and winking at him, “and no, I didn’t sleep with him… or any of his friends.”
“Friends?” Amos blinked.
“He has his own little harem, I met one last night. Charming girl, but… not my type.”
“The privileges of power eh?”
“Quite…” she grinned and patted his arm briefly,
…a city without end, countless people toiling beneath bleached sulphurous skies, buildings that disappeared into the clouds, noise, bustle, congestion, blank faceless people, everybody communicating, but nobody listening, strange metallic smells, incoherent noises, reflections upon reflections, glowing multi-hued lights, blaring, screams, constant movement…
“…thanks for the concern all the same.”
“You’re welcome…” Amos managed to reply. Cece smiled at him once she was back in the saddle, Sye didn’t. The pair wheeled their horses and headed back down the road.
Amos stood and watched them slowly shrink towards the horizon, all the time wondering why, when Cece had touched him, he had seen a vision of hell itself…
The Widow
Molly hadn’t been sure whether to go and see Furnedge or not.
She’d almost been grateful most of the town chose to ignore Tom’s death; it would have been even harder to bear if she’d had to glad hand a succession of neighbours knocking on her door to demonstrate their communal grief and mock sympathy.
She knew, however, that not everybody else was like her. She also knew that was probably a good thing for so many different reasons.
She didn’t particularly like the little lawyer, but in reality other than Amos he was the only person in town who’d even tried to help her or show that they gave a jot of concern for either her loss or her current predicament.
So, after thinking about it for half a day, she changed into something suitably sober and walked up to the Furnedge’s home behind Pioneer Square.
There were a few glances as she made her way up Main Street. Actually there were a lot of glances, most of which varied between withering contempt and degrees of lechery. The former mostly from women no doubt appalled by her scandalous behaviour and the later from men looking forward to finding out just how scandalous she really was when she took up residence in Jack’s.
“Is Mr Furnedge available?” Molly asked the somewhat bedraggled looking girl who answered the door of Furnedge’s home.
The girl leaned out towards her and asked in a low voice, “You’ve heard about his wife?”
Molly nodded, “Yes, I just wanted to give him my condolences… but if he isn’t receiving visitors I quite understand.”
“I’ll just check… its Mrs McCrea isn’t it?”
Molly nodded a second time. She vaguely recognised the girl from around town, but didn’t have the faintest idea who she was; one of the benefits of notoriety she supposed.
Molly stood on the step and waited. It was an impressive house, not as grand as the Mayor’s, but a fair size all the same, clapperboard white behind a small lawn and a picket fence it sat on the western side of The Tear, just before the hill plunged down towards the surrounding flats.
Not long after she and Tom had rolled into Hawker’s Drift she’d asked one of the locals why they called the hill the town sat upon The Tear. The old drunk (rather inevitably
they’d been in the saloon) had told them the story went that when God had finished making the Earth he had looked down upon the great grass prairie and had wept when he saw the beauty he had created, one of God’s Tears had solidified to form the small hill upon which the town had been built.
Molly thought it was more likely that God had gotten a bit bored and hadn’t quite completed this bit; like when you were painting a room and you didn’t bother to finish the corner where the dresser would go because nobody was ever going to look at it. Although slightly drunk, she’d managed to keep that thought to herself.
She had, however, asked why the fuck, when surrounded by mile after endless mile of flat land, they’d built their damn town atop the biggest hill they could find.
“Because we like the view,” had been the rather cold response. Her relationship with the locals had gone nowhere but downhill from there on.
The girl reappeared at the door and asked her in with a harried little smile; Furnedge was waiting for her in the hall.
“That will be all Amy,” Furnedge said, shooing the girl away. Amy gave Molly a curious look before hurrying off.
“Mrs McCrea, is something wrong?” Furnedge asked, concern stretched across his face.
He’s thinking of me, even at a time like this.
Molly wasn’t sure whether to be touched or concerned.
“No… I’m fine, but I heard about your wife, I…” she flapped for the right word, she’d never been quite sure what people were supposed to say at times like this, something that actually meant a damn anyway “…I just wanted to say how sorry I was.”
Furnedge blinked, and for a moment he looked as if he were going to burst into tears.
Oh fuck.
“That is very kind,” he managed to say, stepping forward to take her hands, “your kindness is so appreciated my dear…”
The first thing she noticed was that his hands were clammy and she resisted the urge to pull free and rub her palms on her skirt, the second thing she noticed was that he didn’t smell of anything in particular. Was that one of the things grief did to men? Stop them pouring shit cologne over themselves?
“It must be a terrible shock; I know Mrs Furnedge had been unwell, but even so…”