The Burden of Souls (Hawker's Drift Book 1) Page 17

  “Not at all, I am only too glad to be of assistance… do not worry yourself, this can all be sorted,” he smiled, leaned over and patted her knee, his fingers were sticky with sweat “…and please call me Guy…”

  Molly returned the smile and, as casually as she could, slid her knee away from his touch.

  Under the circumstances, slapping his face might not be the best idea.

  The Preacher

  “Is it wrong to hate your own flesh and blood Preacher?”

  “It’s wrong to hate anyone Martha, we should find it in our hearts to forgive all trespasses, after all, who amongst is perfect?”

  “That no good boy of mine certainly ain’t…” Martha Cripps muttered and shifted herself on her pillows in search of a more comfortable position.

  “You should forgive him. It is what God wants,” Preacher Stone repeated. He was sitting by the old woman’s bed, crouching forward slightly, a closed bible encased between his long slender fingers. He felt he was engaged in an exercise of stating the obvious, with as much likelihood of success as telling a wall to stop standing about doing nothing.

  “God ain’t got a live with the little shit…”

  “Martha…” He sighed, which was as close as he let his exasperation get to the surface.

  She grimaced, “Just cos I’m dying I don’t see why I gotta start being nice to people.”

  The Preacher gave her a weak smile.

  Can’t really disagree with that one…

  “You’re not dying; you just had an accident and busted your ankle. You’ll be fine.”

  She screwed her face up, “Weren’t no accident, know I didn’t leave those shoes at the top of the stairs…”

  “You think your son did?”

  Martha settled for chewing her lips with her gums by way of an answer.

  “Why would he do such a terrible thing?”

  “He’d boil my old bones and sell em for glue if he could get a good enough price!” She shouted, her venom sufficient for droplets of spittle to moisten the air.

  Preacher Stone sat back in the chair, Martha Cripps had been claiming her son was trying to kill her for years, before that she’d believed her husband had been trying to kill her, right up till the day he’d staggered out of Jack’s drunk as a skunk and walked in front of a stagecoach as he tried to cross Main Street; which had been an impressive, if unfortunate, feat of timing given the stage only came to town twice a week.

  He looked about the room, which was sparsely furnished. Other than a simple unfussy double bed there was a night stand that looked like it might revert to firewood if someone left the front door open on a windy day, a cupboard knocked together out of mismatched planks and a threadbare rug of an indeterminate colour. The rest of the small house was no better furnished and was rented from Judd Proctor for little more than the cost of a couple of turnips a week. In other words, if Hector Cripps wanted his mother dead, it sure wasn’t in order to get his inheritance early.

  “You think he’s after your money, do you?”

  “Why else would the ungrateful lil’ weasel want me dead, eh?”

  Preacher Stone might have been able to think of a few reasons, but that would have been singularly unchristian of him.

  “Perhaps this is something you should discuss with Hector, I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding.”

  “I should have wrung his scrawny neck as soon as I’d shat the wretch outta me. But it’s too late for that an all,” Martha folded her arms across her chest and stuck out her bony chin, “An it ain’t no misunderstanding neither!”

  “I suggest you pray for guidance… I’m sure God will show you the way.”

  “I’m sure…” she muttered, her eyes following him as he stood up, “you going, huh?”

  “I have several other people to see… is there anything else you wish to discuss?”

  She shook her head, “Nah… just make sure Sheriff Shenan goes knocking on Hector’s door when they find me with me neck broke one morning.”

  “I’ll bid you good day then,” he nodded, conjured a smile and left the old woman to fester in her own bile.

  Hector Cripps was sitting downstairs by the fireplace in the house’s one good chair. His legs were stretched out and he looked rather comfortable, though Preacher Stone doubted he was so desperate for the chair that he’d kill his mother for it.

  “She still bellyaching about me?” Hector Cripps asked, making no move to rise from the chair. He’d spent most of his adult life perched on the copious folds of his behind and had long since made loafing his main vocation in life.

  “She is in some pain, she-”

  “Awww, don’t fall for that. She just rolled down enough steps to get some bruises and sympathy. That’s all she ever wants.”

  “You should not speak so ill of your mother.”

  Hector snorted, “If ever a babe was found beneath a bush it must have been me! Don’t look like my parents, don’t sound like my parents, not one solitary thing in common with either of them.”

  Apart from an extraordinary talent for bellyaching of course…

  “Hector, your mother is old and frail. Whatever has gone between you in the past should be left in the past. You do not know how much time you have left together. Make the most of it else you may live to regret such harsh words and deeds.”

  Hector muttered something under his breath that Preacher Stone couldn’t quite catch, though he was pretty sure it had ended with the word “off.”

  He sighed and shook his head, “Tend to you mother Hector, and may God go with you.”

  Preacher Stone let himself out without waiting for a response or a farewell from Hector, who was just as bitter and poisoned as his mother. No wonder Maxwell Cripps had ended up such an incorrigible old drunkard.

  He stood in the street and let the smell of horse dung wash the bitterness and bile of the Cripps house from his mouth and nostrils. The house was on the South Flats, at the foot of The Tear, in pretty much the last point before Hawker’s Drift became no more than a collection of single storey cabins, shacks, huts and sheds built with no particular thought or plan.

  He slipped his bible into one pocket and pulled a small notebook from the other where he summarised Martha Cripps wild accusations and her son’s vitriolic rants. Quite why the Mayor was interested in all this petty gossip he couldn’t imagine, while the ethics of passing on what the sick, desperate, poor, delusional and just downright stupid folk of Hawker’s Drift told him in confidence was something he didn’t dwell on too much.

  Once he’d summarised the Cripps’ bitterness he put his pocket book away and looked up the long tapering tail of The Tear, where the South Road climbed up the hill to become Main Street. He blew his cheeks out; it was a long walk back to his church in Pioneer Square. Despite what he’d told Mrs Cripps he didn’t have any more engagements.

  His hand slipped into his pocket, and curled around the little black bottle, just to make sure it hadn’t fallen when he’d fished out his note book. He wanted it. Badly.

  There was no one around other than a down at heel woman hanging grey laundry out on a line, but her back was to him. Nobody would notice and even if they did, what would they see? Preacher Stone swigging from a bottle. He wouldn’t be the only man taking a discreet nip in this town, though his bottle didn’t contain whiskey. He didn’t even know what it did contain.

  Strong, sweet candy…

  The washer woman turned and saw him, she waved and smiled. It was Mrs Calbeck, she had a son with a twisted leg and a husband who liked to spend his money on Josie Sonsoma upstairs in Jack’s.

  He waved and smiled back. He also hoped she’d go in and leave him in peace. Instead, she returned to hanging out her laundry. Phyllis Calbeck wasn’t much of a talker, though she liked her bible and occasionally questioned him about it, she seemed to like the Old Testament stories the best, it was one of the few times her flat tired eyes ever seemed to sparkle, which deep down he thought was unspeakably sad
.

  He could walk on down further into the South Flats, it could be rough there, but nobody would bother a man of God in broad daylight. He could find a quiet spot away from prying eyes and take a sip, just a little one, just to steady his hands and keep the fire from slow broiling his guts.

  Preacher Stone licked his lips, it would be stupid. He knew well enough what the little bottle did to him. He couldn’t risk being seen, but part of him craved it too, feeling the air on his skin and the sweet candy in his throat. The possibility of being found, being seen, the decadent, debauched beauty of it.

  He let the bottle slip from his fingers and pulled his hand reluctantly from his pocket.

  No, he couldn’t, there might be questions. The little wagging tongues that spread town happenings up and down The Tear like a summer firestorm would simply love such a juicy morsel. The Mayor wouldn’t be happy about that. The Mayor had told him to be careful. So he would go back to the church and his little house round the back. He would sit with the shutters closed and the curtains drawn and in the darkness he would take a sip, just a tiny little sip of strong, sweet candy and let it make him feel whole again… even though he knew he’d feel disgusted with himself afterwards.

  The Mayor had also told him only to take a sip in the morning and the evening. No more. But that was just one of a number of things he refused to think about as he begun the long, slow walk up The Tear towards Pioneer Square.

  The Gunsmith

  There was a fine view from the corner of Main Street and Leaning Lane; it was to the north of the Square, just before Main Street dropped down the steeper northern slope of The Tear. Several of the buildings at the top of Leaning Lane had burnt to the ground years ago, a couple of people had died and the houses had never been rebuilt. It wasn’t really a park, just a little patch of scrubby grass dappled with a sprinkle of wild flowers in the spring, but everybody in town called it the Corner Park now. It was preferable to the-place-where-some-folk-got-burned-to-death, he supposed.

  People sometimes came to eat here and look out over the endless prairie that stretched away to the distant horizon. The Mayor, in one of his occasional acts of civic benevolence, had put a couple of simple wooden benches in so folk could sit and watch the sunset, which out here could be spectacular.

  John X liked to come and plonk himself down from time to time and watch the weather. Great mountains of cloud could boil up almost out of nothing and disappear just as quickly, curtains of hazy rain could mist the horizon as they cascaded from near black skies, while the sun still shone fiercely above the town. Rainbows like freshly painted banners could form enormous arcs while the wind tossed the grass heads into a churning sea of molten green or gold, depending on the time of year. In winter, the land was like freshly ironed linen, every feature masked in white; clean, crisp and unending.

  Today, however, the weather was unremarkable. The sun was still hours from setting, the clouds were patchy and ill-formed; grey-white abstracts smeared across the sky without form or beauty. So John X sat and watched the grass move. There were a few farms he could see, the grass cut back and the land cultivated, patchwork squares stitched upon the land, tiny little doll’s houses here and there, all but lost in the vastness of the plains, occasional pebbles scattered over the great expanse of a sandy beach.

  He loved it here. Despite everything. There was a kind of peace he’d never expected to find. A peace he didn’t deserve given all he’d done, he supposed, but the past was the past. He’d come here looking for someone, but that had been so long ago he was barely the same man. He’d never found her and had long since given up hoping he ever would. Or even really wanting to if truth be told

  Funny how the world had a way of screwing up your expectations.

  “Enjoying the view?”

  John X looked up, startled by the voice.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make you jump,” Kate Godbold laughed, her eyes twinkling in a way that suggested that was exactly what she’d intended to do.

  “Yeah… I am enjoying the view…” a slow smile spread over his face as he stared up at her.

  “Bad man…” Her voice dropped a little, though there was no one here to see them. Young couples might come in the evening to do their courting and women, fortunate enough to have small children to play with, in the morning, but at this time of the afternoon they had the place to themselves, though the Corner Park was too exposed to passers-by on Main Street for them to do anything but talk, and even that was risky.

  “Just happen to be passing by?”

  “Nope… hoped I might find you here.”

  “We have to be careful.”

  “I know…” she flicked a strand of hair the wind was whipping about her face away, “…but I like taking risks. It’s exciting.”

  John X sighed, but didn’t say anything.

  The last thing he wanted was excitement, outside of the bedroom anyway. He sometimes wished he’d grow out of women, he’d given up a lot of things, but he doubted that particular vice would be one he’d be able to kick while he still had breath in his body.

  “There’s no need to look so worried, I’m not going to try and straddle you on the grass,” she winked at him, “as much as I want to.”

  John X felt something stirring in his pants. Nope, not any time soon…

  “You’ve got more to lose than I have,” John X shrugged.

  Kate shook her head, “Nah, I’d just get kicked out of my home, lose my family, have my friends spit in my face and be chased out of town as a nigger loving whore, whereas you, my love, would probably get lynched by Ash and his buddies.”

  He shuffled uneasily on the bench, not sure whether the prospect of being lynched or Kate calling him “my love” unsettled him more.

  “Ash has never struck me as a violent man.”

  “He’s not, but under the circumstances I think it would be what is expected of him. And Ash always likes to do what is expected of him. He’s pretty boring like that.”

  “Even more reason not to be seen together then.”

  “True, but I wanted to let you know Ash will be out tomorrow night. All night.” She emphasised the last two words with a significant pout of her extremely kissable lips.

  “Where’s he going?”

  “Playing cards with his buddies, they do it from time to time. Not often enough sadly.”

  “And he won’t be back?”

  “Not till morning – they’re playing out on the Doherty farm this time. They’ll be up all night drinking and talking horseshit; like guys do.”

  “What about Emily and Ruth?”

  “I’ll come to you.”

  “And they won’t notice?”

  “Ruth is staying over with her little friend Gillian. Emily goes to bed early; I’ve got some pie dishes I’ve got to take back to Rosa’s. If she wonders where I am before she goes to sleep she’ll just think I’m talking horseshit with Rosa; like girls do.”

  “I dunno… it’s safer if I come to you in the daytime.”

  “Like when Ash came home with a bad head?”

  “But if anyone sees you-”

  “They won’t, I’ll sneak round the back of yours once I’ve finished with Rosa and be home long before Emily’s up. It’s not like she’s a little girl who wakes up in the night crying for her mommy anymore.”

  “But why take the risk?”

  Kate sighed and raised her head to stare out over the plain.

  “I married Ash when I was 17; I’d never been with a man before and have only been unfaithful with you – and every time with you was in my bed. I’ve never had sex anywhere but my own home. I want to do it somewhere else. Not a good reason I suppose, but it’s what I want.”

  “It’s much the same wherever you do it,” John X replied, but he could see by the way she pressed her lips together she wasn’t going to be persuaded otherwise.

  “Ok… just be careful, huh? No one can see you.”

  She looked back down at him and smile
d that big radiant smile of hers, the one where she wrinkled her nose at the same time. It was a smile that could make him do just about anything.

  “Well, you manage to sneak into my place without anyone noticing. I’m sure I can do the same.”

  John X thought about mentioning bumping into the Mayor, but decided against it. The Mayor wasn’t interested in their little affair, he guessed…

  “See you tomorrow then.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. I might even iron a shirt especially.

  “That…” Kate said with a little laugh “…would be an awful waste of your time as you won’t be wearing it for long.”

  With that she turned on her heels and walked back up the slope to Main Street, John watched the sway of her hips before turning back to stare across the plains.

  He tried to shake the feeling that he’d just made a terrible mistake.

  The Farmer

  Sye didn’t like the way the stranger had ridden back into town with Cece, or the way she had flashed that dazzling infectious smile of hers at him when he’d said goodnight. He’d liked her saying she would see him again soon even less.

  He had a brutish look about him, a cold hard man; the kind of man who always took what he wanted as if he had a God given right to it. Sye knew his sort alright and he was worried Cece was interested in him. He didn’t understand why a beautiful, intelligent young woman would be attracted to a rough, weather-beaten man old enough to be her father, but Sye was the first to admit he understood what went on inside the minds of his dairy herd far better than he did any woman’s.

  Was he going to lose her to him?

  That was what usually happened after all. That was how his world worked, some less deserving fellow, as the Mayor had so succinctly put it, always ended up getting what was rightfully his.

  Well, perhaps rightfully was too strong a way of putting it, but he knew they were meant to be together. She was perfect, she would make him happy. Even the goddam Mayor could see that. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in Hawker’s Drift with Cece as the Mayor had suggested, he yearned to see the world and get away from his wretched farm, but he would endure that muddy little life willingly if he could just live it with Cece.