The Burden of Souls (Hawker's Drift Book 1) Read online

  Donny Bildt?

  The guy who helped out at the school in his spare time, the guy who was the first to organise a collection when someone fell on hard times, the first in line to help out if someone’s roof got taken off in a storm. The guy whose jokes everybody laughed at, the guy every eligible girl in town made eyes at.

  Donny had been one of the most decent and law-abiding men he’d ever met, but there were witnesses and Nancy Klass swore that he’d dragged her behind Casson’s Livery yard where he’d beaten her black and blue with his studded leather belt before raping her. A mad-eyed beast, that’s how she’d described the man who’d been taking flowers to Elena May Thompson those past three months. The man, he was pretty sure, Elena loved and wanted to marry.

  A mad-eyed beast…

  They’d both been town deputies when old Sheriff Kolman had dropped dead in the street from a heart attack. Donny and he had been the only names in the hat to take over. Sam Shenan and the most popular man in town, it would have been a walk over for Donny. To be fair, nobody else would have given him much of a contest either, save for possibly Jesus H Christ, and even that would have been a close run thing.

  So when the Mayor had come to him and asked him if he wanted the job he’d said yes. The Mayor had asked him would he be loyal and do whatever was required of him? He’d said yes. When he’d asked the Mayor about Donny Bildt that eye of his had stopped roaming around its socket and fixed on him. Shenan could remember the feeling clearly, it was the first time he’d seen it happen. It felt like having a rifle trained on him and staring plumb down the muzzle.

  “Well, you just let me worry about that little cocksucker…” Shenan swore he’d heard a round going into the breach.

  Two days later Nancy Klass had been raped round the back of Casson’s Yard.

  He never got to hear Donny’s side of the story, he fled town before the other town deputies, or the lynch mob, could get hold of him. He was never seen or heard of again. Shenan himself had led a posse to track him down, but they never found a trace of the man. He’d learnt over the years, from bitter experience, that men could have all kinds of shit inside them, stuff the world rarely got to see. Most men have secrets, most men have shit, but Donny Bildt was no rapist.

  The Mayor had offered him a deal and he’d grabbed it with both hands without reading the small print and his friend ended up being chased out of town by a braying mob.

  Still, he got the job he wanted, and six months later he’d married Elena May Thompson. So it all worked out in the end, eh?

  The Sheriff stared at the ceiling of his office; it was due a lick of paint, there were small dark splatters in several places. Blood or coffee. Probably both.

  He’d been thinking a lot about Donny Bildt lately and how the Mayor had gotten him removed. Maybe he’d just known Donny’s dark secret; known that the most popular guy in town liked to rape young girls. Maybe, but he doubted it. He knew a thing or two about the Mayor now that he hadn’t known back then after all.

  The only people who knew for sure were Donny and Nancy. No one had seen Donny since he’d run out of town and Nancy had died a few months later. A heart attack, out of the blue, the kind of heart attack that happened quite a lot in Hawker’s Drift; the kind that could strike down the young and healthy as easily as the old and infirm.

  Yeah, he’d been thinking a lot about Donny and Nancy. ‘bout Elena as well. She’d died of a fever, three years ago. Something had been rotting her away from the inside, eating out everything that was good and pure till there was nothing left but puss, bile, pain and heartbreak.

  He couldn’t help but think much the same had happened to Hawker’s Drift.

  Yes, he’d been thinking a lot lately. More than was entirely healthy for a man. He wanted time to think some more, he wanted to give back the star he’d sold his friend to get; he wanted to find some peace.

  He thought about all those things, but what he thought about the most was that it was over thirty years since the Mayor had offered him that deal. When he’d taken his hand and looked into that unmoving eye that had reminded him of a rifle muzzle. Thirty fucking years.

  And the Mayor hadn’t aged a day since…

  The Farmer

  After unloading the last of the cheese round the back of Pickering’s General Store, Sye sat in the wagon and stared along Main Street towards Pioneer Square. He was only a couple of minutes away from Jack’s Saloon and, probably, Cece, but he might as well have been sitting on the moon.

  He had to get back home. Ma always got nervous on days he delivered produce to town and picked up their money. Today it was the cheese she’d made from the milk their small dairy herd produced. She didn’t trust him, really, that was what it boiled down to. Every time he went in to Hawker’s Drift he was sure she expected him to come back with no more than a bag of magic beans for their labours.

  Main Street was about as busy as it ever got, which meant he could see about a dozen people. Sadly, none of them were Cece Jones.

  He could just pop into Jack’s for a quick beer. Just the one. It wasn’t as if he was in danger of becoming a beer fiend or anything. He was, after all, looking for a wife, which Ma should have approved of. She wouldn’t of course.

  His wagon was parked on the corner of the side street next to the store. If he set off home now he’d make it back to the farm before dark; home in time for his dinner… and his evening chores. Then another restless night before getting up before dawn to milk their cows.

  He looked up at the cloud flecked sky and thought of the big wide world that must exist beyond the plains. He envied Cece, whatever her story was. She’d given little away about her past when they’d talked, but he was entranced anyway; she was a beautiful troubadour, moving from town to town, no limit on her imagination bar the horizon.

  She might spend a day in Hawker’s Drift or a year, but she was free to leave whenever she chose and let the road take her on to some other place, with other people and other lives while he would be chained here, to the farm, to the land, to those wretched stupid cows and the vegetables they grew in the rich black soil. Till his back and his spirit were broken and he no longer had the courage even to dream about a different life.

  All his mother cared about was the farm. Protecting the family inheritance, producing an heir, like a feudal monarch desperate to secure their legacy and throne. That was Sye Hallows fate; the King of the Cowsheds.

  He looked up and down Main Street, but there was no flash of blonde hair to be seen, no sparkling smile to lift his soul and offer something more than the drudgery that had been mapped out for him since birth.

  “My what a glum face!” A voice declared, startling him from his thoughts.

  He looked down to find himself being inspected. Without invitation the Mayor hoisted himself up and plonked himself alongside Sye.

  “Is something… wrong, sir?”

  “I think there surely must be…” the Mayor placed his cane between his splayed feet and wrapped his long fingers around the handle “…so why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  “Sir?”

  “You look like you have all the troubles of the world on your shoulders young man, and on such a glorious day too…” he leaned in closer to Sye “…remember, I make all the rules in this here town; and that just isn’t allowed. So why don’t you tell me your woes?”

  “Oh… it’s nothing really.” Sye squirmed and felt much as he did when Ma caught him dozing in the barn when he should have been working.

  “I think otherwise.” The Mayor’s single dark eye looked him up and down, Sye couldn’t shake the feeling the man was trying to memorise every last thing about him as if someone would be asking him a list of questions about Sye Hallows later.

  “Has the bottom fallen out of the cheese market perhaps?” The Mayor demanded when Sye remained silent.

  Sye shook his head, “We got a fair price… as always.”

  “Good to hear; I’m very partial to your mother’s cheese,�
�� the Mayor licked his lips in a manner that was far too theatrical and sensuous for a conversation about dairy produce.

  “Really? I didn’t know…”

  “Oh yes, your Mother’s wares are delicious… she’s so creamy.”

  Sye blinked. Obviously the Mayor had meant her cheese was so creamy, but he thought better of correcting him.

  “Must be girl trouble then? Nothing casts a young man’s face down more readily than girl trouble. In my experience.”

  Sye felt as if a gigantic oven door had opened in front of him as beads of sweat erupted from his skin, while the Mayor’s sweetly perfumed scent was catching the back of his throat.

  “Any particular girl?”

  Sye shrugged and looked away. He had the uncanny feeling the Mayor could look right inside his head and see all of his dreams.

  “You were talking to our new songbird the other night I noticed. Miss Jones?”

  And I noticed you talking to her too.

  Sye’s eyes darted back to the Mayor; he had a strange knowing little smile upon his face. Was that why he was here? To warn him off? Everyone in town knew the Mayor was partial to a pretty face; it was one of a number of things nobody talked about.

  He nodded, without actually knowing what he was acknowledging, but he didn’t trust his tongue just then.

  He’d assumed the Mayor had wanted Cece for himself that night he’d been scampering round rustling up tips for her. He’d also assumed she would want him. He was the richest and most powerful man in town after all, and that any chance he had with her had evaporated the moment the Mayor’s dark and baleful eye had fallen upon her.

  Whatever had passed between the Mayor and Cece she had acted no differently to him afterwards. She was still friendly, in a non-committal way. He didn’t know if she noticed him, or the way she made him feel alive, or how much he’d been around the saloon when she was performing. He guessed she must of as he didn’t believe for a moment that she was stupid.

  But if the Mayor wanted her… then it didn’t matter what he felt, or even particularly what she felt or wanted either. Hawker’s Drift was the Mayor’s town after all, in every possible sense.

  “She seems very… nice…” Sye managed to say eventually when the Mayor continued to stare at him.

  “Nice? I suppose she is. Such a dull unimaginative word isn’t it? Nice?”

  Sye agreed, but he lacked the courage to utter words like beautiful, wonderful or captivating.

  “Have you told her yet?”

  “Told her what?”

  “That you think she is… nice?”

  Sye shook his head and looked away. This was even worse than being interrogated by Ma.

  The Mayor let out a long sigh and settled back on the wagon’s wooden bench, “In these matters it is best not to dally. Otherwise someone else, someone less deserving, will beat you to the prize.”

  Sye hadn’t been aware that courting advice was one of the Mayor’s civic responsibilities.

  “I suppose.”

  “There’s no suppose about it my lad!” The Mayor rapped the floor with his cane, hard and unexpectedly enough to make Sye jump, “one must strike when the iron is hot!”

  “One must…” Sye repeated, he could feel the Mayor’s eye boring into him again.

  “Then we are agreed!”

  “We are?” Sye shuffled in his seat to look at the Mayor, who was still far too close for his comfort. “If you don’t mind me asking sir, why are you interested?”

  “Because I’m interested in the well-being of all my constituents of course!”

  Sye was going to point out that as he lived beyond the town limits, technically, he was not one of the Mayor’s constituents, but decided against it. The Mayor probably didn’t know how to milk a cow, but he certainly knew more about who his constituents were than Sye did.

  “Thank you sir, I’m flattered.”

  The Mayor slung an arm around the young man’s shoulders and leaned in close to his ear, Sye hoped he wasn’t offended by the smell of cheese and sweat.

  “The problem is…” the Mayor said in a conspiratorial whisper “…there just aren’t enough pretty girls in this town. In fact, if truth be told, there are far too many ugly ones, so if we have the opportunity to brighten up the scenery with a lovely young maid, I think we are all beholden to do our utmost to ensure she stays here and puts down some roots. Pretty thing like her really shouldn’t be flitting around from town to town. It just isn’t right, is it?”

  “I suppose not…” Sye replied, equally conspiratorially.

  The Mayor’s breath had the same overly sweet perfumed scent as his skin. Did he gargle cologne? Sye fought down the urge to giggle. It seemed utterly absurd that the Mayor of Hawker’s Drift, who he couldn’t actually remember ever speaking directly to before, should saunter over to his wagon and throw a fatherly arm round his shoulders as he gave him advice about girls. Perhaps he had misjudged him, if he wanted to warn him off Cece he was going about it in the most peculiar manner.

  “Then you need to be bold, because, believe me, some other less deserving fellow will help himself sooner or later. It is the way of the world. There is always some less deserving fellow after what you want. After what is rightfully yours? Isn’t that just so lad?”

  Sye found himself nodding. The Mayor was right, everything he’d ever wanted in his life, from Barney Deeb’s bay foal to a kiss from Katy Keener behind the school outhouse, had ended up going to, as the Mayor put it, some less deserving fellow. And deep down he suspected Cece would be the same. Maybe he’d been wrong about the Mayor, but he knew there were plenty of others who did want her. Hadn’t he seen it in all those hungry eyes watching her sing and not a one of em actually able to hear the beauty in her voice the way he did?

  “Yes…” Sye muttered, before looking deep into the Mayor’s single eye that was so deep and perfectly black at the centre it seemed to drink in all the light of the day. “Yes!” He repeated, more forcefully.

  “That’s my boy!”

  Sye felt giddy, he wasn’t sure if it was from the thought of Cece actually being his, in a way that he hadn’t quite visualised before, or that the air seemed to have become so thick and viscous with the Mayor’s syrupy scent that he had to eat it as much as breathe it.

  “If you want her boy, you gotta go out and take her! Then she’ll eat out of your hand… and anything else you want besides.”

  “I want her sir, more than anything.”

  “Anything?”

  Sye blinked, of course he wanted her more than anything.

  “Yes.”

  “Is she your heart’s one desire?”

  Sye nodded.

  “Then me and you will do what is required,” the Mayor grinned, his teeth white, bright and almost feral.

  “What is required?”

  “To keep Miss Jones here, in Hawker’s Drift. With you…” the Mayor leaned in so close Sye could feel his lips against his ear as he whispered one final word.

  “…forever…”

  The Songbird

  “Well…” Monty panted, wiping a grubby little towel across his sweaty pate as he looked up at her, “…I hope you’re pleased with yourself young lady?”

  Cece had paused halfway down the stairs, staring at Monty, Sonny and several other burly men she didn’t recognise gathered around a huge piano they’d clearly just manhandled into the saloon.

  “Where on Earth did that come from?” Cece asked, frowning as she continued down.

  “The Mayor or Santa Claus I’d guess…” Monty shook his head as if it were the dumbest question he’d ever heard. Though that hadn’t been quite what she’d meant.

  “Of course, the Mayor…” Cece grinned at Monty as she ambled over, she was happy to play dumb when required.

  She slid a finger over the black lacquered top, it was flawless. Not a mark upon it and polished to a near mirror finish. It looked like it had just come out of the factory gates.

  “It’s a b
east, ain’t it?” One of the men she didn’t recognise announced, leaving greasy hand prints on the piano as he patted it. He was bare-chested, though so hirsute it hardly mattered. He seemed to be grinning somewhere beneath the tangles of a copious black beard, while equally long dark twists hung to his shoulders. All he needed was a fire-hardened spear and he would have looked much like a cave man standing proudly next to the corpse of a freshly killed mammoth.

  “It’s a grand piano.”

  “Yep, it sure is pretty.”

  Cece forced a smile.

  “You’ll have to excuse Sniffy,” Monty explained, “he ain’t here for his brains.”

  “Sniffy?”

  “Actually it’s Gordi,” Sniffy grinned again (probably), and wiped a sweaty palm on the wiry dark rug of his chest before holding out his hand, “Gordi Smelts,”

  “Nice to meet you Gordi.” Cece accepted his hand, which engulfed hers entirely.

  “It’s ok, everyone calls me Sniffy any hows. It’s kinda funny. Sniffy Smelts… see?”

  “Like I said…” Monty muttered and ushered Sonny back towards the bar with a playful flick of his towel.

  “What happened to the old piano?” Cece asked, looking around the saloon.

  “It’s out back, it’ll still be useful… gets pretty cold here in winter,” Monty explained, half turning away before adding, “Oh, before I forget, this came with your new toy…” he handed her a small white envelope before following Sonny to the bar. The rest of the men dispersed too, save Sniffy, who continued to stand and stare at Cece.

  “What’s it say?” He asked, shuffling his feet.

  “It’s private,” Cece explained as she turned the envelope over in her hands.

  “That’s ok Miss, I won’t tell anybody what it says.”

  Cece looked pointedly at the big man, but he clearly wasn’t the type to take a hint and it wasn’t worth being abrupt with the guy. He seemed harmless enough, even if he shared the habit most of the men in the town had of staring excessively at her.

  She tore open the envelope and unfolded the note inside.

  I hope the piano meets with your approval. You have Wednesday night off, so come and sing for me…