by Andy Monk
They had to get out of town. She had to whisk Emily and Ruthie away before the Mayor came back and made her take his bargain regardless.
She moved towards the door, but Ash stepped across her, putting himself in the way.
“Best you take a sip and wait for the Mayor. He won’t be long. And then we’ll be happy again. Emily will come back to us and you won’t want to sleep with anyone else again.”
His voice was flat. There was no anger, no rage, no incomprehension.
She’d been terrified about what would happen if Ash found out about John, but her worst nightmares would have been better than this.
She hit him, pounding her fists on his broad chest, pummelling and screaming at him. He wrapped his big arms around her and pulled her close to him till she had no room to swing her arms anymore.
“I love you, I love you, I love you…” he intoned, a hollow incantation devoid of any emotion.
She wriggled and squirmed till she was free of his grasp and staggered back to the window where Mr Wizzle was waiting, hands clasped in front of him.
Her knees were suddenly incapable of bearing the weight the world seemed to be pushing down on her. She staggered and leant against the window frame to stop herself falling.
“Is that how I will be if I drink that stuff?”
Mr Wizzle shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. The Mayor said Ash’s mind hasn’t settled down yet, remember? The old Ash is still in there, the memories are still there, but it is taking time to strip them away and rearrange them…”
“I don’t want to be like that…”
“You won’t be.”
“How can you be so sure? He gave that stuff to Emily and look at her?”
“You are not like this now.”
“Of course I’m not, I haven’t drunk any of that shit!”
Mr Wizzle turned his eyes on her and there was such sadness in them that, just for a moment, she forgot about Ash entirely.
“Again.”
“Again?”
“The Mayor,” he said softly, “he said, “Just drink it again, Kate,” remember?”
She nodded, her stomach tightening.
“But I never have…”
Mr Wizzle turned his sad eyes across the room, “Ash told us the Mayor introduced you to him. At a dance?”
Her stomach tightened even more, right down to a hard little ball of stone, “Yes…” she whispered. Of course, he had...
She’d been stepping out with Bill Brolin who had a little farmstead way out of town. She’d been sure she was going to marry him too. The love of her life she’d thought with a seventeen-year old’s certainty. He was a few years older than her and had seemed charming and sophisticated and terribly wise to the ways of the world. At least as charming and sophisticated and wise to the ways of the world as a man who bred pigs could get anyway.
Even going to live in his farmstead miles from the rest of humanity had seemed exciting and romantic. Then one day, while she’d been spending her days thinking about wedding dresses and flowers, he’d told her he didn’t love her anymore and had met someone else.
Until the last few weeks she’d thought that was the worst moment of her life. She’d cried for days. Then she’d found out he was getting married to Sherlyn Noren. Sherlyn had long since earned herself the unfortunate nickname of Heifer amongst the small community of Hawker’s Drift’s teenagers. Not because she looked much like a cow, but because she was universally considered to be about as bright as one.
She’d never spoken to either Bill or Sherlyn again; as far as she knew they’d had a happy marriage though they rarely came into town. They’d been blessed with a child almost immediately, a daughter, Nicole, though no more had followed.
After that she’d been convinced she’d never get married. It stopped hurting so much after a while, but being rejected in favour of a girl known as Heifer hadn’t done much for either her self-esteem or her opinion of men. She hadn’t been much inclined to see anyone again, deciding her life would be immeasurably better if she avoided men and their fickle hearts.
The Summer Dance was one of the events the town put on each year. Officially it was a chance for the whole town to let their collective hair down and celebrate the days of warmth and plenty, but it was also one of the few occasions all the young unspoken for people got the chance to be together in the same place at the same time to cast their eye over each other and see who would worry their parents the least. Or the most, in some cases.
She hadn’t planned on going and couldn’t remember why she’d changed her mind. Bill and Sherlyn would be there and the thought of Bill staring lovingly into Heifer Noren’s eyes while the girl stared blankly back at him had seemed too high a price to pay for some music, free chicken and the attention of boys who would end up dropping her for someone else.
In the end, she’d dutifully made herself as pretty as she could and had hovered around the edge of things, trying not to be depressed by other people’s happiness. Then the Mayor had appeared out of the crowd with a tall and stocky young man trailing hesitantly in his wake.
She hadn’t recognised him, though when the Mayor introduced her to Ash Godbold she’d known who he was. In a small town a newcomer was always news. He’d rolled up a few weeks earlier to set up a barber’s shop on Main Street. He seemed a bumbling, awkward fellow and her immediate impression was he wasn’t the kind of guy she’d ever let near her with a pair of scissors.
The Mayor has pushed a cup into her hand. She couldn’t remember what it had been, she’d been not quite eighteen and her parents had a dim view of liquor, but she’d accepted it without comment. Feeling strangely important that the Mayor had brought her a drink. He’d said a few things, though she couldn’t remember what. She’d felt awkward and uncomfortable under his scrutiny. He was the most important man in town and it had seemed singularly odd he’d brought a stranger over to talk to her, especially given she’d never spoken to him in her life as far as she could remember.
She’d sipped the drink and wished they would leave her so she could slip away and go back to practising being alone as that seemed how she’d be spending the rest of her life.
When the Mayor finally bid them goodnight, she’d been relieved. She couldn’t for the life of her recall a thing he’d said, though she remembered feeling too hot and almost a little giddy. They’d been a smell too. Sweet to the border of sickly.
She’d planned to finish her drink and make her excuses while Ash stood in front of her, smiling like it was a skill he was still working on and trying to force random garbled words together in the vague hope they might form a sentence.
He seemed nice enough. But he was big and bumbling, with a face so soft it was almost ill-formed, like someone hadn’t quite got around to finishing it off. The Coby brothers were playing fiddles and half the town seemed to be dancing along with them. Ash had been moving about too as he tried to talk to her, she wasn’t entirely sure if he was trying to dance a little bit or he’d had some peculiar muscle affliction because his jerky spasms weren’t in time to anything the Coby brothers were doing.
She’d been about to go, about to make an excuse and slope off to pine about Bill and the life Heifer Noren had so unexpectedly stolen from her. But she hadn’t, something had stayed her feet. They’d been a little voice in her head.
Give him a chance. He will make you happy…
She’d always put it down to the drink. It didn’t take much to make a seventeen-year-old girl tipsy she supposed. But had that been it?
Someone a lot drunker than her had staggered by and Ash had stepped closer to shield her from the oaf, his hand resting gently on her arm. His touch had tingled and his eyes had suddenly stopped looking scared and had sparkled instead. He’d smiled and it seemed like his features melted and reformed, no longer ill-matched and awkward. He’d looked handsome and kind and a strange sort of wonderful.
Give him a chance. He will make you happy…
Her knees buckl
ed and she was on the floor, gasping for breath.
Mr Wizzle crouched down, wincing as he did so, and found her hand.
“It was a lie…” she whispered, “…right from the start, it was all a lie… the Mayor…”
“I’m sorry…” the old man tilted his head to one side “…but everything in this town is a lie…”
The Gunslinger
“He didn’t know why they’re heading for Hawker’s Drift.”
Even with only the starlight to illuminate her, he could still see the blood on Sally’s hands. There were spots on her face too. Cave had screamed for quite a while.
So much for being quiet.
“Anything else useful?”
Sally shook her head, “To be honest, we didn’t ask him a whole lot of questions.”
She handed the knife back.
The grip was sticky.
“Sit down.”
After a moment, Sally eased herself next to him on the blanket he’d laid out to flatten the grass.
“How’d you feel?”
He could have reached out and touched her to find out, but talking was supposed to help. So he’d heard anyway.
“We did a bad thing…” she whispered.
“He was a bad man.”
“No arguments there… but we should have taken him to town for a trial, shouldn’t we?”
“We’re travelling slow enough as it is… have to be practical about these things.”
“Never killed a man before…” her voice cracked, but only a little, “…never killed anything like that.”
“How’d it feel?”
“Felt good.”
“Don’t make a habit of it.”
He felt her eyes resting on him, but he kept his on the dark line of the horizon caught between the grass and the stars.
“Why did you let us do that to him?”
“I appreciate the quality of vengeance.”
Sally nodded like his words meant something.
“Go get some sleep, we’re going to be riding before dawn.”
“Don’t think I can sleep. Not sure I’ll ever sleep again.”
“Know the feeling.”
“Who are you, Amos?”
“A gunslinger.”
“Dorry told me what you did for her. How you saved her. And now you’ve done the same for us.”
He gave a snort, “I wanted to leave you, was Dorry persuaded me otherwise, you should thank her.”
“I don’t think you’re a man who does much he doesn’t want to do?”
He closed his eyes and saw the Thin Rider’s silhouette forever riding before him. He’d left Molly because he was a man who appreciated the quality of vengeance all too well.
“I think you’re wrong about that…”
*
They left before dawn, other than Sye and Laura he didn’t think any of them had slept. He was glad to be back in the saddle while it was still dark, he was eager to be back in Hawker’s Drift before sunset. He didn’t want to see what they were leaving of Leland Cave behind for the crows to feast on either.
Sally had gone directly to Cave after he’d given her the knife, Cailyn and Nicole had risen silently and followed her. Dorry had stayed with Laura and had held the girl to her chest when the screaming started.
Dorry hadn’t said anything to him until they were saddling up.
“Was that necessary?” When he’d looked blankly at her she’d added, “Killing him, like that?”
“He deserved it.”
“Probably did, but those girls gonna have to live with his screams for a long time.”
“They’re gonna have to live with their own screams for a long time too…” he’d boosted himself into the saddle and stared at the horizon while the rest of the survivors mounted up.
Once they were under way he came alongside Sye, whose chin rested on his chest as he rode. The young man had said little since he’d cut him free, his eyes glazed, distant and with no sign that he recognised him. His face was a mess and the damage might run a lot deeper than that.
“How you doing?”
Sye managed a grunt, but didn’t raise his head.
“What happened to you?”
Sye’s head turned a fraction towards him and he said in a wet croak, “They killed my Ma, Mister… that’s what happened.”
There were other questions he wanted to ask him. Questions about black bottles, the Mayor and Cece Jones, but he didn’t press him. The kid was an idiot, but he didn’t deserve what had happened to him any more than the other survivors of the Scourge.
After he was satisfied Sye wasn’t going to topple off his horse, he urged Silver on and returned to the head of their ragbag little column. The pace was slow, he could see the pain in the faces of the Sally, Cailyn and Nicole. They’d all been brutally assaulted and riding a horse was the last thing they should be doing, but he had no choice but to push them on. There was nowhere they could rest here, no safe havens from the Scourge.
Hopefully they would have time when they got to Hawker’s Drift, but once they were there that was their choice. His work would be done and he would be taking Molly and Amelia to safety.
Like he should have done in the first place.
*
The pace was slow and the day grew inexorably hotter as the sun climbed in the east. Nobody spoke and out front he could almost fool himself he was travelling alone again with no cares and responsibilities other than his own and the Thin Rider’s.
The safety of others was a burden that didn’t rest easily on his shoulders. He was a killer and a drifter who’d spent thirteen years with nothing to fill all those lonely miles but hatred, bitterness and a thirst for vengeance. His only experience of other, better, emotions had been those that echoed in the souls of strangers. It hadn’t been until he’d met Molly that he’d really understood how damaged he was.
A man like you…
Leland Cave had seen it, recognised it. A fellow traveller on a broken road leading to nowhere but damnation.
Had he given the knife to Sally because Cave had debased and abused those women and therefore deserved their vengeance? Or was it because he was cut from the same soiled cloth as Severn and Stodder Hope and as he hadn’t been able to punish those bastards for their crimes he’d passed sentence on Leland Cave instead? Or was it because he was afraid Cave was right and for a man like him there was nothing to be done but to eventually sink to the bottom of the pond and end up crawling through the kind of filth the Scourge and Jacob Severn represented.
He became so lost in dark black thoughts he didn’t see the riders till Dorry came alongside him.
“We got company.”
He looked up with a start and twisted around to follow her gaze to the south-east where a band of riders were dirtying the horizon.
“Ok, we’ll go north and pull back to the west once we’ve lost sight of them, same as before.”
Dorry nodded.
“How they doing?”
“Hurting, inside and out. Scared shitless by the thought those bastards will get hold of them again. Kinda know how they feel…”
“They won’t.”
Maybe he should say something to reassure Sally and the others, but finding the right words wasn’t something he was much good at.
“They’re only interested in raiding farms and homesteads. They won’t bother us if we keep our distance.”
Dorry nodded again, but didn’t look convinced.
He turned Silver northwards and the others followed suit, confident these raiders would ignore them like all the others had.
This time, however, he was wrong…
The Widow
Of all the people in Hawker’s Drift, Deputy Blane was the one who unnerved her the most. Even the Mayor couldn’t quite compete with his innate ability to make her skin crawl. Which, in her book, made him one seriously creepy-assed sonofabitch.
“You made me jump,” Ruthie declared, putting a hand to her chest and firing off an un
convincing laugh. It seemed the girl shared her low opinion. When Blane said nothing, she took a half-step into the room, “I don’t think Ma’s home just now.”
“I know. That’s why I am waiting. I want her. We have business.”
When Ruthie looked like she was going to venture further towards him, Molly reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Go check on your sister…”
“Huh?” Ruthie half-turned back.
“And take Amelia up to see her. I’m sure she’d love to meet Emily.”
Ruthie’s eyes widened a fraction and so did Molly’s in return. She couldn’t read souls, but she knew down to her whiskey-flavoured bones she didn’t want either of these girls in a room with the cold-eyed young lawman.
“I’ll check upstairs,” Ruthie squeezed past her and took Amelia’s hand.
“He’s never ridden a white horse,” Amelia hissed, before allowing Ruthie to take her upstairs.
Blane watched in silence with flat, uncurious eyes.
Beneath the stillness is something… something that is slithering, snickering, jabbering, howling…
Amos’ description of the deputy came clearly enough into her mind for her to think the gunslinger was whispering in her ear, but, of course, he wasn’t. It was just her and a couple of kids with this lunatic.
And blood on the floor.
She tried not to stare at it, not to look alarmed and figure out how she could get herself and the kids out of the house as quickly as possible. Which seemed an awful lot of balls to try and keep in the air at the same time.
Blane’s flat empty eyes slid down towards the blood staining the exposed boards by the faded rug that covered most of the small room’s floor.
She guessed not staring at the blood had been one ball too many.
“There’s blood on the floor,” Blane’s voice was an emotionless monotone. He could just as well have been pointing out Monday followed Sunday.
“Whose?” she tried not to flinch as Blane’s attention returned to hers.
“I don’t know. The house was empty when I got here.”
“So, you let yourself in?”
“I need to see Mrs Godbold.”