by Andy Monk
“And why would he do that, I didn’t know him?”
The Mayor smiled pleasantly, “Maybe he didn’t like your face. People can be quite… unfathomable at times, don’t you think?”
“Who are you?” Amos grabbed the Mayor’s wrist, “Really?”
“I could ask the same question of you Mr… do you even have a second name?”
“Amos serves for both.”
“Amos Amos? Your parents seem to have lacked a little imagination.”
“Perhaps, they also told me to be careful who you give your name to, because if the Devil gets to hear he can own your soul.”
The Mayor placed his free hand on top of Amos’ “Take it from me, Mr Amos, that’s just so much bullshit.”
There was no warmth in the Mayor’s hand, his skin was like winter silk, and still nothing came out of him other than darkness and the echoes of distant screams.
“What happens about Molly?” Amos asked, still holding the Mayor’s wrist.
“Ah… the heart of the matter.”
“Well?”
“She owes me money. She needs to pay me the money back.”
“By working in the whorehouse?”
“Not necessarily… any means will do. I just want my money back.”
“And if I give you the money?”
The Mayor raised an eyebrow, “My, you actually do like her, don’t you? That must be quite challenging, given your predicament.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I suppose not… you have that kind of money?”
“If I got it for you, you’ll let her go. Let her leave town?”
“Oh,” the Mayor pulled a sullen face, “leave? But I’d miss her quite terribly. She’s such a character. Between you and me, Mr Furnedge would miss her even more.”
“The lawyer?”
“Quite smitten. I understand he is a… rival?”
“There’s no rivalry.”
“No? Well, he does have the money to pay off her debts. So he, therefore, has the means which you lack to make her happy in two respects.”
“You should be careful Mr Mayor… I’ve killed a lot of men.”
“Perhaps, but never for merely insulting you, I think. No, that would be below you, wouldn’t it?” The Mayor patted his hand and pulled himself free of Amos’ grip.
“If you want to deal for Molly, come and see me. Perhaps we can do some business,” he flicked out his hands to straighten his cuffs, “but don’t take too long, the bigger that deadline looms, the more attractive Mr Furnedge’s offer will become.”
“She isn’t going to marry him.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not, either way don’t try and skip town,” his eye momentarily drew still, “it won’t work.”
“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”
The Mayor took a step closer, “Let me tell you something Mr Amos. This town, on this hill, is an island amidst a sea of grass a long, long ways from anywhere, and upon this distant shore all manner of folk get washed up; smart ones, brave ones, poor ones, desperate ones and a whole fucking goddamn wagon full of dumb ones. Folk who have done all manner of things, have all manner of secrets and all kinds of stories. They stay because they think they’re free here, on this distant shore so far from everywhere. The thing is, none of them are. Not one, no sireee…” the Mayor’s mouth twisted into a crooked little smile while his restless eye shone in the dying rays of the sun, “…their souls all belong to me. And that can be a real burden I can tell you, it’s lucky I have such broad shoulders and an eye that sees all that there is to see…”
The Mayor tipped his derby back slightly before spinning on his heels and heading up the slope back to Main Street.
As Amos ambled slowly over to Molly, the Mayor turned round, walking backwards up the hill he raised a hand and waggled his finger towards them “And don’t forget that date for your diary Mr Amos…” he shouted back at them “…the 4th July… the year of our Lord 2035!”
The Widow
His body was covered in scars, at least the parts she’d seen. Molly guessed the parts she hadn’t seen were even worse. His chest and abdomen were crisscrossed with knotted scar tissue and keloids, while he had what looked suspiciously like a healed bullet wound in his left shoulder.
The history of violence in Amos’ life was written clearly upon his flesh, and even by the standards of the men she’d known and the times they lived in, it must have been terrible.
She’d wondered if they were all the result of the attack that had led to his wife’s death, but she shied away from asking, it was none of her business. Besides, she’d tied herself to him now, she’d find out soon enough how violent he actually was.
“Why did you say you’d kill Blane if he touched me?” Molly asked as they sat in the drawing room one evening, she was sipping whiskey; Amos was drinking milk, which seemed kind of wrong.
It had been nagging at her mind for the last few days, most of which they’d spent cooped up in her home, first by her desire to keep Amos safe and then from the rain that had swept in across the plains as they’d walked back from Corner Park. Within a few minutes of the first fat drops hitting the ground the rain had come down with the force of a bottomless celestial bucket being emptied upon the town.
“He’s dangerous,” Amos replied.
“I knew that already. You kept staring at him while the Sheriff was talking about what happened to that poor girl.”
Amos nodded.
“You wanna tell me why?” She finished her whiskey and set the glass aside without refilling it. She guessed she was still trying to make a favourable impression.
He was silent for a while, doing that thinking stuff he seemed so fond of before he sighed, “I think he had something to do with it.”
“But Preacher Stone…”
“That seem likely to you?”
She hadn’t really known the Preacher very well, no better than she knew most of the town anyway; he’d seemed a crotchety old goat, but still…
“I wouldn’t have put any money on him.”
“Me neither.”
“So why’d he run away and hang himself?”
“He was found hanging from a tree, which isn’t necessarily the same thing.”
“So you’re saying someone – and when I say someone, we both know who we’re talking about – strung up Preacher Stone out on the grass. Why?”
“'cause he couldn’t hang me for it, and he needed to hang someone for what happened to that girl. An apparent suicide is a lot easier to manage than a trial.”
Fuck, now I seriously need another drink…
“But why Blane?” Molly poured herself another shot, “apart from the fact he’s a creepy little fuckard of course.”
“Fuckard?”
“It’s a cross between a fucker and a bastard,” Molly explained, before adding proudly, “I made it up myself.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you… Blane?”
“Oh… I don’t know he had anything to do with it for sure…
“But?”
“But… he was… well… aroused.”
“You had that effect on fuckards before?”
Amos let the little joke pass with only the faintest twitch of the corner of his mouth. It probably wasn’t a joking matter. Whiskey drinking for you.
“It was the Sheriff’s description of the girl’s assault that was arousing him, he was… I don’t even know how to really describe it… he was ablaze, glowing with lust like he was going to explode.”
“I know what you mean.”
“You noticed it too?”
“Erm… no.”
“Oh.” Amos frowned.
She’d seen it plenty of times in men and even felt it herself occasionally, but that had nothing to do with Mysterio stuff.
“It just means he’s a sick fuck, it doesn’t necessarily follow.”
“Perhaps.”
They sat in silence; the rain was hammering on the window
while the wind squalled intermittently.
“Fucking weather,” she sighed, stood up and crossed to the window. She pulled the curtain back and watched raindrops trickle down the pane. The rain seemed to be easing a little, possibly.
“We should go,” she said eventually, “as soon as possible. Forget about finding out what happened to Tom or what those stupid provisions were for.”
Amos didn’t reply.
“Next time they might do a better job of finding something they can hang you for.”
“They?”
Molly looked back from the window and let the curtain fall back into place.
“He.”
She noticed how low her voice had dropped as if afraid the Mayor might be summoned if she spoke his name too loudly.
She didn’t repeat herself.
“Once the rainstorm has passed.” Amos said, finally.
“We’ll be able to make it out of town, you think?”
“Sure.”
She wanted him to get up off of his backside, give her a hug and tell her that slipping out of town and disappearing into the grass would be as easy as pie. She wanted him to say that the Mayor could hire an army of dickhounds to look for them and never have a flying fuck in a coal mine’s chance of finding them. That they’d be safe and no one was going to get hung and no one was going to spend the rest of their life working in a whorehouse.
That’s what she wanted to hear, but Amos wasn’t that kind of a man, so she had to make the best out of “sure” that she could.
In all fairness, Tom had never been any better. The best he could usually muster by way of reassurance had been a cock-eyed grin and a theatrical wink that became progressively more cock-eyed and theatrical depending on how much booze he’d downed. It had taken her about six months to work out that the grin and the wink, when used in tandem, usually meant they were in trouble.
The fact it had taken her a whole six months to work that out was another reason Molly sometimes suspected she was more gullible than was entirely healthy for a grown woman to be.
She crossed back to where Amos was sitting, crouched down in front of him and, as he watched her with the wariness of an abused kitten, took his hand in both of hers.
If the reassurance wasn’t going to come to Molly…
“You don’t sound entirely convinced?”
He squeezed her hand, which was about as much physical contact as he seemed able to stand.
“It’ll be fine, I’m good at this sort of thing,” he gave her a little smile and, after a moment, another squeeze of the hand.
“When?”
“A few days.”
“A few days?” Molly repeated, “Not sooner? Wouldn’t the storm give us more cover?”
“It’s been raining heavily for twenty-four hours, the ground is sodden; the heavy going will tire the horses quicker and make it easier to track us.”
She nodded. It sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Which was reassurance of a kind.
“Then what?”
“Then?”
“Where do we go?”
“Does it matter?”
Molly looked pointedly at him, “Where do we go?”
“Oh… I-”
She smiled and let his hand slip away from hers as she straightened up.
“It’s ok.”
“Let’s get out of this town first, huh?”
“Amen to that.”
She flicked her hair back and headed for the door, “I’m going to bed, don’t be long…”
“Molly.”
“Huh?”
“Why?”
She turned back from the doorway, “Why what?”
“Why… me?”
“Why not?”
He snorted a little exclamation, “I’m not even a-”
“If you’re going to finish that sentence with the word “man” then you really are a dumb assed fuck-noodle.”
“Fuck-noodle?”
“I’m on a roll.”
Molly stood in the doorway uncertain what to say when he said nothing in return. She’d been trying to act as lightly around him as she could, Amos was damaged she knew, not just the terrible physical wounds of his past, but inside too. Who wouldn’t be? He’d separated himself from humanity and the smallest familiarity or act of physical tenderness seemed to terrify him.
She supposed she was damaged in her own way too, damaged by her father and the men she’d followed who had been so like him, by their blows and abuse, and her own inability to love a half decent man when she’d finally found one who didn’t express himself with the back of his hand across her face.
Amos wasn’t like her father, or the other men who had beat and used her, he wasn’t like Tom either. She didn’t love him, but she was drawn to him all the same in a way she hadn’t experienced before and couldn’t quite explain. And she badly needed his help too.
“Come to bed… I sleep better,” she said, finally.
Amos nodded and offered a little smile, before turning to stare at the closed window, his lips slightly pursed.
“What’s the matter?” Molly asked.
“Nothing… it’s just stopped raining.”
He shook his head as if shaking a thought away before coming over and following her out of the room.
The Little Girl
Her tummy felt sicky and her head was thumping louder than when Mommy was banging on her bedroom door telling her to get up and come to breakfast.
Mostly though, she was just scared.
It was dark, there were houses she didn’t recognise on a street that climbed up a hill. It was a funny kind of street because the road was nothing but mud, and water was running down the middle of it in dirty little streams.
She looked down at her slippers, which were now brown rather than pink, and the muddy rivulets running around them. Mommy wouldn’t be happy about that.
She jumped and gave out a little strangled cry as the world was momentarily engulfed in light, before the darkness returned and a loud crashing noise came rolling down the hill.
Thunder and lightning; she knew about them because Daddy had told her once. Thunder was the sound of God moving his furniture about and lightning was… she screwed up her face. She couldn’t remember. She’d have to ask him again.
There was a thing about counting the time between the flash and the bang so you could work out how likely it was that God might drop his wardrobe on you. It was something like that anyway.
“Mommy!” She called out, but there was no reply. The street was deserted and the windows in all of the houses were dark. It had been raining heavily a little while ago, but it had all but stopped now, save for a fine drizzle.
She was soaking wet, which meant she’d catch a chill. Every time she’d been in the rain Mommy had warned that she’d catch a chill and she couldn’t remember ever being this rained on before.
She trudged up the hill; it seemed as good a way to go as any, maybe they’d be a policeman at the top and then he could take her home. She’d been warned about talking to Strange Men (Strange Men did bad things), but it was ok to talk to a policeman.
She was halfway or so up the hill when she came to a halt. Her head felt funny, kind of light and swimmy. She felt hot too, despite the drizzle feeling cold on her face, which didn’t seem right at all.
A figure appeared at the top of the hill. It was too dark to make him out clearly, but he walked kind of funny as he hurried down towards her. He looked too fat to be a policeman.
He didn’t seem to have noticed her and was whistling to himself, though it wasn’t any kind of tune she recognised. As he grew closer, she could see he was wearing an old fashioned kind of hat and a suit that was baggy and ill-fitting.
He stopped suddenly, like he’d walked into a glass wall, and stared at her.
“My!” He exclaimed, taking off his hat to reveal a few tufts of long spiky hair sticking out from the sides of his otherwise bald head, “what are you doing out here on su
ch a night young lady?”
He took a few steps and bent forward a little to peer down at her. He smelt of eggs. She was pretty sure he wasn’t a policeman.
“I’m looking for my Mommy,” she replied, in a small uncertain voice as she looked up at him.
The man straightened up and looked about, “Where did you last see her?”
She shrugged and shuffled back a couple of steps, Mommy was always telling her not to talk to Strange Men, and given he was wearing a dirty black and yellow checked suit, had a wilting paper flower pinned to his lapel and oversized shoes he was clearly a very Strange Man.
“Are you hungry?” He asked, pulling a greasy paper bag from his pocket and thrusting it at her, “Care for a pickled egg?”
Even worse than talking to Strange Men was accepting candy from Strange Men; she was pretty sure the same advice would apply to pickled eggs too.
She shook her head vigorously and took another step backwards.
“Are you ill?” She heard him ask, but she suddenly felt so giddy the whole world seemed to be spinning around her and she was vaguely aware that she was sitting down in the squelchy mud of the street as the darkness rushed in from all sides.
*
“We’ve been worried about you hun.”
She peeled open her eyes, there was a woman sitting by her bed that she didn’t recognise. Actually she didn’t recognise the bed either for that matter.
The woman was very pretty, she had large twinkling green eyes and long curly red hair that she wanted to reach out and pull straight to see if it would spring back into a curl when she let go. She didn’t though, it probably would be considered rude.
“Where am I?” She asked trying to sit up, but managing only to lift herself a few inches from the pillow before slumping back down, “I feel yucky…”
The woman smiled and placed a hand on her forehead, her touch was cool and soft.
“You got a fever sweetheart, you gonna have to rest up here a bit – luckily I got a real big bed, so there’s plenty of room for a little un like you.”
“How’d I get here?”
“Mr Wizzle found you in the street outside my house and brought you in out of the rain when you fainted.”
“Mr Wizzle?”
“That’s me!”