by Brad Raylend
“You know what whores all have in common,” he said, looking at his glass in between his folded hands.
She rolled her eyes and stood up to storm away but stopped as he grabbed her arm. He didn’t grab her in a way that said he meant to hurt her; rather his hand gently caught her arm in a way that displayed compassion. She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Not turning her head towards him.
“They’re all horrible actors, as if they actually enjoy their job.”
She turned her head towards him, unsure as to where he was going with this. His hard expression had eased slightly to a more somber look and his grip on her arm loosened.
“You especially.” He let go of her arm and rested his forearms on the bar. “I’ve been in this bar for almost an hour now, and for the entire fifty-seven minutes I have been here, not once have you flaunted yourself at any of these sorry fucks who will use you and abuse you while their families are at home waiting for them.”
He didn’t speak like other men. His words were straight and sounded out entirely. He was firm and confident and spoke like he preplanned each sentence in his mind and then read it out loud. He didn’t use filler words like um and uh. He didn’t refer to people as fellers or cowboys. She assumed he must have been from far away, because nobody from around here spoke like him.
“Mister … I …” she fumbled with her words.
“I know,” he said. “You’ve been over there this entire time and not once did you see me look at you. You probably half-expected to get picked up before you finally made your way over here, but were relieved that tonight you might have a customer whom you chose for yourself.”
She stared at him, her eyes blinking rapidly, trying to hold back emotions that rarely made an appearance, even in the most lonesome of places.
“What do you want from me?” she asked softly.
He reached into the inside of his black felt coat and pulled out a large wad of bills that he thumbed through before dropping two bills on the bar. She was astonished at his lack of care towards his money. His drinks couldn’t have cost more than a dollar, yet he dropped five dollars on the bar.
“What’s your name?” he asked, folding up the bills and holding them with his right hand down at his lap. The skin of his knuckles was broken and scabbed.
“Courtney Holland,” she said softly.
Men rarely asked her what her name was. They usually acted as if she wasn’t a person at all. Just an object to use for an evening. She didn’t know what it was about this man that was beginning to intrigue her, but she didn’t want to leave.
“How long have you been doing this, Courtney?”
“Since I was fifteen,” she replied.
He seemed angered by her answer, not at her but rather at the world. It was as if he blamed the society she belonged to for what she was. He looked around the saloon in disgust at the drunken cowboys laughing and yelling obnoxiously at each other. He then turned back to her.
“I’m sorry,” he said sadly.
She sat down next to him, lifting the long skirt of her dress up to place her heels on the support bar of the stool.
“You don’t need to be sorry …” She hesitated then asked, “What’s your name?” Her hands fumbled on the bar in front of her.
He didn’t answer. He looked at the wad of bills in his hand and then up at her. “How much do you usually charge?” he asked.
She was puzzled at first and somewhat disappointed in the question. Had he given her this long speech just to make her feel better about having sex with him? She straightened up in her chair, lifting her chin up slightly. “A dollar an hour,” she said.
He looked down, his jaw rotating slightly; his lips stayed sealed. He looked back up at her and fished in his pocket once more. His hand emerged with another wad of cash and he straightened it and stacked it on top of the other one. He then set the large stack on top of the bar between them. Her eyes widened and she looked at him in disbelief.
“What? I don’t …” she mumbled.
“I want to know something, Courtney.” He turned on the stool towards her and looked her in the eyes. His rigid expression made her cower slightly. “If your answer is admirable … all this money is yours.”
She looked at the large stack of money with astonished eyes, then back at him. His stare had not strayed from her, and it took every inch of bearing in her body to maintain eye contact with him.
“What’s the question?” she asked.
“What do you live for? What keeps you going … what is the end state of your years of misery?”
She blinked, then her eyes danced around him as she thought about the question. “I don’t … I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m not giving you anything unless you give me something in return, a guarantee per se.”
“Which is?” she asked, looking at him with fear and confusion building inside her.
“There are two kinds of people in this world.” He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his legs, his hands folded in front of him. “Those who give, and those who take.” He canted his head to the right and looked at her with soft eyes. “Just because you use your body to make money doesn’t make you a bad person, but I would be lying if I told you that what you did didn’t sadden me.”
“Why?” she asked softly.
“Because I see a beautiful person in front of me who deserves better, who is here because a troubled past littered with bad people has funneled her into this life. So, I want to know … what you are going to give to this world.”
Her eyes stayed locked on him intensely as tears pooled in them. Memories of her past began to bombard her mind in an overwhelming wave of pain and sadness that brought out her emotions. She fought hard to keep them at bay but was starting to break. Nobody had ever shown sympathy towards her. Those who didn’t agree with what she did usually displayed it in a hateful and disrespectful way by cursing and verbally condemning her to hell. This dark stranger had accessed emotions deep within her heart and had in just a few minutes of conversation brought her to one of the most pinnacle moments of her entire life. She thought about lying, telling him that she planned to obtain an education and become some kind of medical professional, but her lack of knowledge on the subject and her racing mind steered her away from doing so. He adjusted in his chair, looking at her intensely waiting for an answer. Tears ran down her face as she believed the sad truth would not impress him. She sat up straight, wiping the tears from her face. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, looking up at the ceiling. She wasn’t going to lie to him; he was too smart and would no doubt see right through her hollow words.
“I want to move to the Northwest, near the coast. I want to see the ocean and smell the salt in the air.” Her eyes dropped to the floor, and she shook her head and continued. “I want to have a child … I want to have a family.” She looked up at him. “I want to tend to a house, take care of livestock and crops … cook for my family and …” She paused for a moment and scraped away a tear with her finger. She looked at him with desperate eyes. “I want to love.”
His hard stare disappeared, and his eyes went soft then dropped to the floor. He breathed in slowly then let it out quick through his nose. He stood up and reached for his black hat on the bar and pulled it back onto his head. He then grabbed the stack of cash off the bar. Courtney stared at the floorboards, her vision becoming murky. She felt as if her answer was as pitiful as her existence. She looked up at the noisy saloon around her. The men at the tables yelled at each other loudly and spilled their drinks. The other prostitutes clung to them. She felt disgust and sadness. She felt a hand grasp hers. She turned quickly to see the man holding her hand in his and he placed the large stack of money in her palm and placed her other hand on top of it. She was speechless, her eyes wide. She looked up at him in complete surprise. She tried to speak but nothing legible would come out.
“I want you to have what you want … this will help get you there,” he said.
He then turned and walked to the swinging doors.
She stood up quickly and raced after him. She stopped on the porch outside the saloon. It was a cool, clear night. The moon lit the quiet city around them. She called out to him as he walked hastily away.
“Wait!” she said.
He turned slowly as she approached him, holding her long dress up with the large stack of money in her hand. “I don’t know what to say,” she said quietly.
“Don’t say anything, just go do what you need to do. Live for yourself,” he said as he turned and started walking towards a pale horse that stood with its reins tied to the hitching post.
“But …” She stopped and looked down at the money then back at him. “Why? Why would you give this to a stranger?”
He looked at the ground, then turned towards her once again. “I’m not a good person, Courtney. I’ve done horrible things, and it’s the people around me who always pay for it. I don’t deserve such wealth. I don’t deserve to be happy … not after what I’ve done. All I can do is help someone like you who doesn’t have to feel the way I do, and who deserves better than what they have.”
He pondered for a moment. “I don’t believe in such things … but if hell is real I’m going there.”
He untied the reins to the pale horse and traced them back. He stepped into the stirrup and lifted himself up onto the horse.
“I … don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you’ve done, but it doesn’t have to be this way. You can always change …” she said, looking up at him.
The horse jerked its head to the side as he pulled the reins, turning his other side to her. “You can’t change who you were destined to be.”
This confused her. She didn’t understand this pessimistic outlook. She assumed he must have been some sort of outlaw; he must have done terrible things in order to survive, and it was this thought that made her feel somewhat attached to him.
She too had a dark past and felt an extraordinary amount of guilt because of it. She felt that maybe she could be his way out. Maybe together they could escape their dark pasts and start a new life together. The brief fantasy vanished as he began to ride away.
“Will you at least tell me your name?” she asked as he started to trot away.
He didn’t look back as he answered. “My name is York.” He spurred his horse, and headed out of town toward the bright moon.
STEPPING OFF
-SITREP-
I have obtained a horse and have linked up with a local who is familiar with the area. We will set out tomorrow and begin our search for York. After discussing the area with my contact, we have concluded that York is staying in a small city about thirty miles west of my current location in a small town a few miles past the Utah state line. Beyond this city is basically open desert, so there isn’t really anywhere else for him to go. I will contact you tomorrow after we have set up camp. I hope everyone is doing well up there.
P.S. Tell D that my contact looks just like Mathew Quigley. He’ll get a kick out of that.
Todd tucked the MTX back into the inside pocket of his duster and walked into the kitchen where Sarah was preparing dinner. He couldn’t help but notice that she was always dressed very properly, no matter what time of day it was or what she was doing. Her somewhat tenacious attitude also benefited her and made it easy for Todd to see why Luke was so in love with her.
“Need any help?” Todd asked.
“Oh, no thank you, dear, it’ll be ready shortly,” she replied, wiping her hands on her apron.
Todd smiled and was about to walk out when she stopped him.
“Todd,” she said.
He turned, raising his eyebrows. “Yes?”
She seemed almost shy as she swayed back and forth slightly, her hands fumbling in front of her. This bashfulness briefly reminded Todd of Kara.
“Are you …?”
“What?” he asked softly.
She canted her head, her eyes sympathetic. “Are you heartbroken?”
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t really understand the question. He had never been asked such a question before.
“What do you mean?”
She blinked and her eyes danced. “It’s just that … your brother is in trouble, you seem to be running from some kind of trouble yourself, and well … quite honestly you seem lonely. I suppose what I am trying to ask is, are you alright?”
“I wasn’t,” he said firmly. “Not by a long shot.”
His mind went to WWIII, and he felt a sickening feeling in his gut. It seemed like yesterday he was witnessing firsthand the end of the world. Yet so much had happened since then, such incredible things that it almost seemed like a lifetime ago.
“I lost a good friend, and it weighs heavily on me. You and your family have been so good to me, you have shown me that that I don’t have to dwell on the past. There is always something to hope for.”
She smiled, walked over to him and hugged him. “You’ve been a blessing yourself. Thank you so much. There will always be a place for you here.”
During dinner, the conversation was in high spirits, mostly consisting of humorous stories of the past and poking fun at each other. Todd was especially intrigued by Sarah’s story of how she met Luke. They had been talking about how the weather had been beautiful lately and it led to the topic of Sarah’s old family home. Naturally it branched off from there into the origins of the McWilliams family.
“I was traveling from New Mexico with my family,” Sarah said. “My mother, father, and two sisters. I was the oldest of the three; I was nineteen at the time. We had been traveling north, following the Rio Grande, my father hoping to find a better piece of land for him and my mother to settle with my younger sisters. I was merely along for the ride, hoping that I might be able to set out on my own soon. We ended up finding a place that was only a few hours away from Albuquerque. My parents and sisters began getting established in a small house with a few hundred acres while I set off to town to find work.”
Todd listened closely, his arms folded on the table. Jack picked at his food as he usually did. Luke ate nonstop the entire meal, taking few breaks in between bites to make a comment.
Sarah continued. “I spent the next few years taking several jobs in the area. Starting with manual labor, then finally working my way inside. By the time I was twenty-three, I was working in a library in town that was newly established. I loved the job because I spent more time reading than I did working.” She giggled. “One night, I was closing up late. I had spent the entire day finishing a romance novel, one of several I had read that week. I heard a soft knock on the door. It startled me because of how late it was and the harsh weather outside. I opened the door to find a young man, drenched to the bone from the chilly rain. His clothes were shredded, and his long hair was draped in front of his eyes.”
Todd looked over at Luke, who had a smug grin on his face as he ate. Todd chuckled and looked back at Sarah. “What happened?” he asked.
“Well … ends up, he had been wandering through the desert for weeks by himself after getting turned around on his mail run. A few hours before he had found the town, he had gotten attacked by a pack of wild dogs. He had bad gashes on his arm, which I didn’t notice until I finally let him in.”
“Took your sweet time too,” Luke chuckled.
“Well, you weren’t exactly the politest person I had ever met,” Sarah replied.
Luke smiled and looked over at Todd. “It was the only building with lights still on, and I was bleeding to death. This loving little flower here closed the door in my face twice.”
Sarah coughed loudly as if to tell Luke to shut it. “So, after nearly begging on his hands and knees, I felt so bad that I let him in and gave him a blanket, and it was then that I noticed the blood dripping off his fingers. I didn’t know much about medicine, but the sweet old man I worked for kept a secret stash of whiskey behind the counter. I grabbed it and some rags and started dabbing his wounds with it.”
Luke shook his head, no doubt recalling the painful experience.
Sarah laughed. “I remember I screamed when he yelped at the first dab.”
“I didn’t yelp!” Luke argued.
“You let out quite the holler.” Sarah laughed. “Scared me half to death.”
Todd laughed. “Are you kidding? I’d probably yelp too!”
Everyone at the table laughed. Jack laughed with his mouth full and food smeared on his cheeks. Sarah looked at him and laughed again. Luke wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Clean yourself up, Jack,” Luke said, holding back chuckles.
Todd finally stopped laughing and let out a sigh. “So what happened next?”
“I decided it would be best for him to stay there for the night, but I sure wasn’t going to leave him there alone. So, we sat up all night, talking. I tried to ask about him, but he seemed more curious as to who I was and what I did. He seemed so interested in me, and he was so sincere. It was like he had never met a girl before.”
“Not one as pretty as you that is,” Luke said.
Sarah looked at him and smiled, her cheeks reddening. “It was comments like that, as well as his dashing appearance, that made me fall in love with him. That, and how shy he was. It was so adorable.”
Luke leaned over and kissed Sarah on the cheek. Todd wondered if this was what true love was. It was inspiring to see a true example of something that he had believed to exist only in fairytales. He wondered if he could ever have something like this. Part of him fantasized about having a family someday. The idea was still quite foreign to him, but it was quickly becoming much more appealing.
“That was nearly twenty years ago,” Sarah said softly. “If only one could go back in time. I’d love to see the first time he kissed me. Papa nearly shot him when he caught us in the hay loft.” She laughed.
Jack had a puzzled look on his face. He held his fork above his plate and stared at Sarah.
“Oh, don’t you give me that look,” Sarah snapped.
Jack held back a smile, and they laughed once more. Todd ruffled Jack’s hair and stood up to clean off his plate. He was followed by Sarah. The remainder of the night consisted of Todd asking questions about his hosts, not only to satisfy his own curiosity, but also in order to keep the conversation about them and not himself. He hated lying about his past. Every time he was asked something about his younger days, he had to choose his words carefully, converting his past in the twenty-first century into something believable.