A God of Many Tears (Hawker's Drift Book 4)

by Andy Monk

  “If you are, I want to come with you.”

  “Even if we were, you’re in no state to fight anyone with a bullet hole in you.”

  His eyes swivelled towards Cece, “You fixed Laura up, somehow. Can’t you do the same for me?”

  Cece’s smile was as cold as Sye’s eyes had become.

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  Despite the fact Sye had no memory of giving her the Mayor’s black candy, Cece still wasn’t in the forgiving business.

  What the young man had been through at the hands of the Scourge had changed him far more than the Mayor playing with his memories had. He’d been a love-sick fool before, but now his eyes were barren and the only bright colours in his soul were painted by anger and hatred. He didn’t know if Sye would ever be able to love anyone again.

  He dropped his gaze to his own scuffed boots. Maybe in time. Maybe in thirteen years or so. Give or take.

  Time heals or time kills…

  “Don’t go chasing vengeance, Sye, trust me, that road will strip you down till you have nothing left on your bones but misery.” He wanted to put a hand on the young man’s shoulder, but he kept it at his side to avoid being stung by a pain that was all too familiar.

  “I ain’t gonna rest till every last one of those bastards are dead. They killed my Ma…”

  He’d heard the cold certainty in Sye’s voice a thousand times before. He’d heard it in his dreams, he’d heard it whispered in the wind, he’d heard it in the silence of the road and the screams that echoed in his head through the smallest hours of the night.

  There was nothing he could say or do to salve the young man’s pain and nothing he could do to turn him from a road he’d followed himself for so many years. There was always dark work to be done and the Thin Rider had no end of vacancies to fill...

  “Go back to Hawker’s Drift, they’ll be plenty of Scourge to kill there soon enough,” he glanced at John before turning away, “help him into the saddle.”

  Looking at Sye was too much like staring into a dark mirror.

  The Widow

  Deputy Cully’s hand shook as he took a long slug from the bottle. The skin visible between his long dark hair and beard was pale and waxy. Still, she doubted she’d look her best if she’d just had Doc Rudi dig a bullet out of her either.

  “Came across half a dozen of em, a couple of hours east of town. They turned tail and rode hard as soon as they caught sight of us. We went after them.”

  He took another sip. He was sitting behind the desk Doc Rudi had laid him on to take the bullet out. There was still blood smeared over the desktop. His shirt had been cut off and save for the bandages wrapped around his shoulder and the sling keeping it from moving he was bare-chested. He had an impressive collection of scars and tattoos.

  “Bastards kept far enough away so we couldn’t shoot em and close enough to keep us interested. Two hours we chased em, then they slowed. Should have smelt a rat, but couldn’t see anything to be wary of. Know how far you can see out there and there was nothing but the smoke from burning farms. No other riders. Then, suddenly, we were being fired at from every direction. They’d been waiting for us in the grass, their horses taken far enough away so there was nothing to warn us. They knew we were coming and they led us right into an ambush…”

  “How many of them were there?” Sam asked, arms folded across his chest.

  “Dunno… one minute there was nothing, then they were everywhere. Must have been fifty, sixty of em given how quick it went down. Just erupted outta the grass and started pumping shells from all sides. Don’t know if we even got a shot off in reply. Vasquez was next to me, must have taken two or three bullets instantly. Men and horses went down all around me. Dunno how I got out… dunno… just rode… just rode…”

  “Anyone else make it out?” the Mayor asked, perched on the corner of an adjoining desk. For once his eye was frozen in place.

  Cully kept at the bottle before shaking his head, “Dunno… didn’t see anyone, but was just busy trying to stay in the saddle after I took one.”

  “None of em came after you?” the Sheriff pressed.

  Again Cully shook his ragged locks, “No… guess they thought I wasn't worth bothering with.”

  “Or they wanted someone to get back to town. Put the fear of the Scourge into us,” Sam replied.

  “Picked the wrong damn town for that gentlemen,” the Mayor snapped, “if they’re dumb enough to come here, we’ll be ready for them.”

  “Yeah, we’ll show the fuckers!” Sniffy growled.

  Otherwise the Mayor’s words were met with silence and shuffling feet.

  “I think you need to listen to what Sally’s gotta say too…” Molly ventured, she got the impression the rest of the room had forgotten about the two of them.

  “Sally?” The Mayor asked, his eye moving to the bedraggled young woman next to her.

  She glanced at Sally by way of an apology, but she nodded, before turning on the men clustered around Jez Cully.

  “Sally Lumiere, I live… I used to live… a couple of days out to the east of town with my folks. The Scourge came and killed them, burnt our farm. Took me prisoner… I’ve seen them up close,” she lifted her chin and swept back her knotted greasy hair, her eyes meeting the men surrounding her.

  She reached for Sally’s hand and took it in her own.

  “Well, what can you tell us Miss Lumiere?” the Mayor asked, “Information is power, after all.

  Sally kept her chin raised and held the Mayor’s gaze.

  “Mr Mayor, they’re gonna wipe your town off the face of the Earth…”

  *

  Sam Shenan and his remaining deputies were out overseeing the defence of Hawker’s Drift. Occasional voices floated up from the square along with the clattering of horses’ hooves, but, as she sat in the chair listening to Amelia and Ruthie snore, it didn’t sound much different to normal. She guessed most of the activity was going on at the edge of town where barricades were being thrown up. There were contingency plans, the Mayor had assured them, something like this had always been possible and defences could be thrown up quickly to fortify the town.

  From what Sally had recited, from her own experiences plus what Amos had glimpsed of the Host – as they apparently called it – she wasn’t sure what they could throw up to keep the Scourge out.

  The Mayor, however, had oozed calm and confidence.

  Along with the rest of the room he’d listened in silence to Sally. She was probably skirting around a few things, but she’d clearly suffered a terrible ordeal and if it hadn’t been for Amos she’d be with the Host now and serving as a Bride to the men of the Scourge.

  “And Amos was sure about what he saw?” Sam had asked once Sally fell silent.

  She’d nodded, “Thousands of them. An army, he said. Didn’t see or hear anything to prove him wrong. These are more than a bunch of brigands… they have a philosophy.”

  “A philosophy?” the Mayor had asked, seemingly amused by the idea.

  “The weak need to be cleansed from the Earth so that the strong can grow. Fire makes you stronger, that’s what they’re always saying to each other. Over and over.”

  “And I thought the meek were supposed to inherit the Earth…” Doc Rudi had quipped. There had been no laughter other than his own nervous titter.

  “Whatever tin pot nonsense they preach and no matter how many of them there are,” the Mayor had said slowly, looking around the dozen or so faces gathered in the room, “they ain’t burning my town.”

  “They already gunned down most of my men…” Sam had replied.

  From the look he’d got it was clear the Mayor had expected a more supportive response.

  “We got over a thousand souls in town who can shoot gun. Probably more. We got weapons, we got ammo, we got food and we got defences we can roll out. We got full warehouses and plenty of water. They want to try their hand, they’ll die on our gun in droves. Get every able-bodied man who can fire a weapon co-o
pted into the town militia and I’m bringing over my boys from the ranch to help. They’ll put the fear of something a lot worse than God into this scum. Let me tell you, this is one fire that won’t make them stronger!”

  His eye had raked the room, challenging anyone to say otherwise. Nobody had.

  She’d caught Sam at the door.

  “Blane?”

  The Sheriff had shaken his head, “No sign, and, frankly, I ain’t got the men to go look for him, not now… he’s either dead or left town. Hopefully the Scourge will do us a favour if he has… either way, stay here for now. You’ll be safe.”

  “And the Godbolds?”

  “Same thing, Molly… I ain’t got a soul to spare. Even if most of my men weren’t dead…”

  He fished out a key and handed it to her, “My apartment is upstairs, take the girls and Sally up there. It ain’t much, but it’s more comfortable than my office and safer than anywhere else in town in case Blane is still around.”

  “Where you gonna sleep?”

  “Don’t reckon I’ll be doing much of that for a while, but I got my house. Don’t go there much since Elena passed, but if needs be…”

  “Thanks, Sam…” she’d wrapped a fist around the key, before adding in a whisper “…the Mayor?”

  “Guess we’re all on the same side… for now.”

  He’d touched his hat and hurried out into the square.

  *

  She’d put the girls in Sam’s bed, which from the crumpled sheets and fragrance of old sweat, wasn’t the ideal place to put a couple of girls, but it was better than the floor of the Sheriff’s office. There was a camp bed in a back room which looked a lot less comfortable but smelt a whole lot better and Sally had fallen into that.

  She’d said she wasn’t sure she’d ever sleep again, but after she’d washed in a basin she was snoring as soon as her head hit the thin pillow.

  Between the two bedrooms was another room with a couple of chairs, a table and not much else. Sam Shenan didn’t seem much of a man for home comforts. She’d settled into one of the chairs and sat facing the only door into the apartment. After a few minutes, she got up and moved the other chair in front of it, wedging it under the handle as best she could.

  She wasn’t sure if she was more worried about keeping Blane, Giselle or the Scourge out. She suspected it wouldn’t do a great deal of good against any of them, but it made her feel slightly better.

  She sat with the lamp turned down, not bright enough to light much, just enough to keep the dark from engulfing the room. There were too many monsters in the shadows for her to want to sit in the dark.

  An hour or two passed as she thought about Blane trying to kill her and his claim to have murdered Tom, the approaching Scourge, the way Giselle’s dark eyes had lingered on her, what had happened to Ash, Kate and Emily and, of course, the Mayor. But most of all she thought about Amos and the message he’d given to Sally that he loved her.

  When she finally fell asleep she found that it was only the last one she dreamt about.

  She woke the next morning to find the Scourge had arrived.

  The Songbird

  She’d thought it would be straight forward to reach the Mayor’s ranch once Sye and Laura had ridden off towards Hawker’s Drift. Unfortunately, the Scourge had other ideas.

  An hour after leaving Sye and Laura (and the circle of corpses Amos had planted in the grass) they spotted a large band of riders directly between themselves and the ranch.

  “How many you think?” Quayle had asked.

  “Thirty-five,” She’d replied instantly. When she’d noticed Amos staring at her she’d shrugged, “Good eyes.”

  Like the rest of her body, “good” was underselling herself somewhat, but they’d enough to have to explain to the gunslinger at some point without having to cover her augmentations as well.

  “Scourge?” Quayle ventured.

  “Yeah,” Amos replied instantly.

  When she glanced across it was his turn to shrug, “Good nose…”

  Even with her eyesight, which was as perfect as you could get without military grade wet-wiring, she could only make out dots in the grass. She wasn’t buying a lot of what “Old Amelia” had said, but given the arrival of the Scourge having Amos with them would help enormously. Maybe getting into the ranch too. She somehow doubted the Mayor’s security ended with a barbed-wire fence and a KEEP OUT sign.

  Not that she had any plans to blow the place up. If there was a way off this Alternate it was there, she was sure of it. Wherever Amelia had gone, it wasn’t down the rabbit hole. There’d been no resonance even when she’d taken the quantum mapper to the exact point where the old fraud had disappeared and they’d been no afterglow from the Wonder Stuff that lay between the worlds.

  So where had she gone, exactly?

  She stared at the distant Scourge. She’d work on a theory later. They had more immediate concerns.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Not coming this way,” Dorry had chipped in, boosting herself in her saddle.

  “Not going anyway,” Amos added, before glancing towards the west where the sun was a bloated orange ball falling towards the grass, “making camp for the night would be my guess.”

  “Why not head back to the Host?” Dorry asked, “Must be nearly at Hawker’s Drift now.”

  “Surrounding the town, stopping people leaving maybe. Or cutting off help. Dunno. Either way, we’re gonna have to give em a wide berth,” Amos spat on the ground and looked unhappy. He was good at looking unhappy.

  They’d swung around to the west and kept going to till the Scourge had dropped from sight, they weren’t followed as far as she could see. They rode on past sunset and Amos only called them to a halt when the twilight had faded to the cusp of night.

  “We’ll make camp for a while and push on later. I want to be sure they’re not coming after us.”

  “That likely?”

  Amos shook his head, “Doubt they want to be travelling in full dark, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “If they do come this way, how’d we even see them till they were on top of us?” Quayle asked.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll see em. Let’s eat and get a few hours rest. We’ll be moving again by midnight.”

  “Not sure I’m hungry,” she remained in the saddle even when Quayle and Dorry followed Amos’ example. She wanted to push on, the sooner she got to the Mayor’s Ranch the sooner she could get home, or at least somewhere closer to home. She knew there were some enormous holes and assumptions in that theory, but she needed something to cling to, something other than the fear she was stranded here for the rest of her life.

  “Trust me, best to eat when you can. No guarantee when we’ll get another chance.”

  “You’ve done this before, huh?”

  “Avoiding people who wanted to kill me? Sure. As to whatever the hell else we’re doing…”

  Dorry looked up, “Hey, maybe this is a good time to explain to me what the hell we are doing?”

  “Nope,” Amos said, digging into saddle bag, “it’s time to eat.”

  “But-”

  He threw a bag of oats at the girl, “Horses first…”

  Dorry muttered something under her breath and Cece laughed despite herself.

  “What?” Amos demanded.

  She shook her head and swung out of the saddle, when Amos kept staring at her she winked.

  “Good ears…”

  *

  Fire might make the Scourge stronger, but it clearly wasn’t doing much for their sense of taste.

  “What kind of animal did this come from?” she asked, sniffing the strip of dry leather Amos had salvaged from the Scourge’s saddlebags.

  “It’s beef,” he assured her, tearing a chunk off and looking at her as if there was nothing to debate.

  “If it was, it was a very long time ago…”

  “Probably should have brought more food,” Quayle replied, worrying a strip of jerky him
self.

  She shot him a look. She’d been so eager to get out to the ranch she’d made the mistake of leaving the preparations to John. In fairness, she’d expected they’d only be gone for the day while they reconnoitred the ranch, but still, water and biscuits wasn’t anybody’s idea of a meal. Anyone save her erstwhile fiancé of course. And the Scourge.

  They ate in silence, talking and eating this stuff at the same time wasn’t possible whatever damn augmentations you had. Every now and then Amos’ head would go up and he’d look out into the night, his body rigid and still. Her gaze would follow his, her night vision was only marginally enhanced, but under the emerging stars she guessed she could see better than he could. Nothing moved beyond their circle of grass and their hobbled horses. When he was satisfied no one was approaching he went back to his chewing.

  Eventually she gave up on the meat, there was some dried fruit which was equally unidentifiable and tasteless, but was at least kinder on her jaw.

  When they were done Amos sniffed, laid his rifle across his lap and looked at his dinner companions, “We got a few hours, we can either sleep or talk.”

  “I ain’t tired,” Dorry announced, “let's talk about the Ghost Lady.”

  “He said we only got a few hours…” Quayle replied, worrying at something lodged between his teeth.

  “Better get started then,” Amos’ teeth flashed in the darkness as he smiled, “Just who are you two?”

  One of the fundamentals of field research was to never explain who or what you were to the locals. There were all kinds of damage out of context knowledge could do in a primitive alternate. But given the circumstances she guessed that rulebook had burned along with everything else Quayle had destroyed.

  “I’m Dr Cecilia Jones, from the Harkewoods Quantum Facility. He’s Professor John Quayle. Likewise. We were once engaged to be married. Fifty years ago for him, a couple of months ago for me…” she looked at the two blank faces staring back at her.

  “That’s the easy part. The rest is a bit more complicated…”

  The Farmer

  It took them a lot longer to get back to town than he’d anticipated. Laura had made nothing short of a miraculous recovery from her injury, but, even so, riding was still an ordeal for the girl.