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

  The saloon girls were watching Cece with a mixture of amusement and disdain; none of them seemed much interested in moving out of the way for her until Monty clapped his hands loudly and demanded to know why they weren’t working.

  One by one they slunk away from the piano as Cece took off her coat. She wore a simple white blouse and long grey skirt, unfussy and conservatively cut. She looked totally out of place amongst the gaudy colours of the reluctantly dispersing saloon girls.

  She carefully folded up her coat and hung it over the back of a newly vacated chair before taking off her bonnet and shaking out her long blonde curls.

  One of the barflies next to Amos blew a long drawn out whistle, “Monty, you sure you can’t get her to whore?”

  Monty Jack pulled a face and shrugged. What more could he do? The girl clearly didn’t know a good thing when she was offered it.

  The young man who’d been eating at the table glanced at the barfly in irritation. He looked like he was going to say something, but thought better of it and shuffled his chair round to face Cece instead.

  He was tall and strong, with mousy fair hair and the sun darkened skin of a man who spent a lot of time outdoors. A farmer or rancher, Amos supposed. He’d noticed the young man hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of Cece. Amos noticed lots of things. It was what he did best. That and killing.

  To be honest most of the men in the bar still sober enough to notice their surroundings were staring at Cece, but their expressions were hungrier and easier to read. The young man was the only one who didn’t look disappointed that she’d refused to whore.

  Cece settled herself behind the piano; she played a few notes and wrinkled her nose, “This thing’s not tuned right?”

  “Don’t worry honey, ain’t anyone here likely to notice,” Monty shot back.

  She took a deep breath and shook her head. She likes things just so, Amos thought, and was used to having them that way. Not spoilt, just used to things being right. She really must be a long way from home.

  “Very well,” she shrugged, accepting she was just going to have to make do with the battered old piano, “this is an old song my momma used to sing when I was little. It’s not exactly a cheerful tune when you listen to the words properly, but I always like to sing it when things aren’t going too well.” She looked directly at Monty Jack and gave him a smile that was dead halfway between sweet and patronising.

  Although Jack’s customers had noticed Cece well enough, they hadn’t considered interrupting their business of drinking, gambling, chatting and flirting with the saloon girls for it, but as soon as she’d sung the first line of her song a complete hush descended on the bar.

  Even Amos, who usually didn’t find too much in life to smile about, felt the ghost of a grin haunt his face as he listened to her.

  Cece had been right, it wasn’t a particularly happy song; it was a ballad about returning troubles and lost love, but she sang it so sweetly that he couldn’t help but find his spirits lifted by it.

  She was facing the wall rather than looking towards her audience, but her voice was so strong and clear it filled the whole saloon, like morning sunlight streaming into a room once the curtains were pulled apart; her voice chased all the shadows away.

  Amos looked across the room; everybody was transfixed. Even the saloon girls, who he guessed knew a thing or two, were smiling gentle little smiles as if reminded of long forgotten loves from the days before they’d come to sell themselves in the rooms above Monty Jack’s saloon. A couple even seemed on the verge of tears.

  When Cece finished, and the last note from the old piano had faded into the smoke and whiskey fumes, the hush lingered around the bar as if everybody had quite forgotten what they were supposed to be doing.

  Monty Jack wiped a hand over the few long greased strands of hair that were stuck to his shining scalp and exclaimed, “Well fuck me five ways to next Sunday!”

  Which was the cue for a round of thunderous and rather astonished applause.

  Cece blinked and blushed in the face of the enthusiastic clapping which slowly abated until only the young farmer was left wildly clapping and stomping his feet. When he eventually realised everybody else had stopped it was his turn to blink and blush, followed by a sheepish grin as he found his seat again.

  “Well?” Cece asked Monty once she’d returned to the bar.

  “That was beautiful,” Monty replied. He pronounced the word “beautiful” as if it was one he was so unfamiliar with he wasn’t entirely sure he’d got it right.

  “Thank you,” Cece beamed, “do I have a job?”

  “If he don’t want you,” the barfly next to Amos interrupted, “you can come an sing at my house any day of the week… and Mrs Crane can just pack her bags if she don’t like it!”

  “If it meant you were home more she’d be out the door before sunset,” his neighbour at the bar cracked, slapping him on the back.

  “Well, it’s against my better judgement, but it’ll sure make a change from listening to all these drunks bellyaching about my whiskey all night long.” Monty sighed.

  “Your whiskey is shit,” someone slurred.

  “One month trial; bed, three meals a day and you keep half your tips.”

  “What about pay?”

  Monty looked at her blankly, “Bed, three meals a day and you keep half your tips.”

  “No pay?”

  He nodded towards a couple of the saloon girls who were trying to hustle up some business at one of the card tables, “If you want to earn more…”

  “Ok, ok… bed, three meals and… three quarters of my tips.”

  “Young lady…”

  “I’ll make a lot of tips,” she smiled sweetly.

  “Fuck, I’m getting soft,” Monty sighed, before spitting in his palm and holding out his hand, “deal.”

  Cece looked at him like he was holding out a turd, but gingerly accepted his hand anyway.

  “We’ve established you don’t whore, but it’s only fair to warn you this place can get rough, especially on pay day. I hope you don’t mind getting pawed on a regular basis?”

  “Not if you don’t mind your customers getting slapped in the face on a regular basis?”

  The barfly next to Amos laughed, “Hell, gonna be more fun with her here, think I’ll have to come by more often from now on.”

  “Stan, you could only come here more often if I let you sleep on the bar,” Monty shot back.

  Stan shrugged, “You only gotta ask nice…”

  Monty waved one of the saloon girls over, she had a hard careworn face and soft green eyes, “Josie, Cece’s gonna be staying with us for a while, settle her into Mary’s old room for me will you?”

  “Sure boss,” Josie grinned, “welcome aboard hun.”

  “What happened to Mary?” Cece asked as Josie took her by the arm.

  “Oh don’t fret about that sweetie,” Josie smiled, “the rug cleaned up real nice…”

  As the two women turned towards the stairs, the young farmer stood up, clutching a beaten old hat before him, “Miss?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I ask what that song’s called, it was very pretty, but I don’t think I ever heard it before? I sing a bit too, not as good as you, but I’d love to learn it.”

  “I’d be happy to teach you it…” she stuck out a hand which he stared at for a full five seconds before enveloping it in one of his own.

  “Sye Hallows,” he smiled.

  “Cece Jones… pleasure to meet you.”

  “Me too,” he beamed, “when will you be singing again?”

  “Tonight, I guess.”

  “Great, I’ll probably pop back later then.”

  “Not like you to come in at night Sye? Your Ma don’t like you riding out after dark,” Monty grinned as he retreated behind the bar.

  “Well, once in a while is ok… for special occasions.”

  “I’ll see you later then,” Cece said, turning to follow Josie.

 
“The song, Miss?”

  “Oh sorry,” Cece called back over her shoulder, “it’s called Yesterday…”

  Amos swivelled back to face Monty Jack who had started to wipe down the bar with a cloth that was dirtier than the floor.

  “Was there a stagecoach today?” Amos asked him.

  “No stage till next week… if it even turns up. It ain’t what you call a reliable service. Why?”

  “No reason,” Amos shrugged and slid his empty glass across the counter for a refill. As the barman poured he wondered how a girl who had just arrived in town during a rain storm, had a hat and coat that were bone dry…

  The Widow

  Molly McCrea’s first thought, when she saw the rider approaching through the rain, was that the Mayor had sent a man to finish the job. She found herself leaning towards Mr Furnedge; today he stank of orange blossom and old paint.

  Furnedge felt her move closer and pulled the umbrella down over them. Given that the wind was driving the rain in sheets the umbrella was about as much use as Furnedge, but she suspected he was enjoying being this close to her.

  She relaxed as the rider pulled his horse from the road and doffed his dripping hat. He had a hard weathered face, but not a cruel one. He lowered his head and showed more respect than the whole town of Hawker’s Drift had managed since her husband had died.

  Since her husband had been murdered, she corrected herself.

  Molly nodded her thanks as they trudged past the rider in the wake of the wagon. He let them pass before replacing his hat and continuing towards the town.

  Keep riding, she wanted to shout back at him, keep riding into the rain.

  Instead, her eyes were pulled back to the coffin carrying her husband’s body; the wind tugged at her veil, trying to unmask her as the fraud that she was.

  You never loved him anyway…

  Tom McCrea had been a hard man to love; quick to temper and slow to forgive, but he’d offered her security and occasional comfort. Until he’d been fool enough to come out here in search of his fortune, or whatever it was he’d been looking for. Now she was alone again…

  She lowered her eyes and stared at the mud clinging to her skirts. She wasn’t overly concerned; she’d already decided she was going to burn everything she wore to the funeral.

  Her clothes were sodden, splattered with mud and probably infused with the stink of Mr Furnedge’s overpowering cologne. However, she wouldn’t need them once she got home; Molly McCrea had no intention of being a widow for long.

  *

  The funeral of Molly McCrea’s husband was as brief and sparsely attended as their wedding had been six years earlier. It had rained then too, bitter winter rain, spat into their faces by a furious north wind as soon as they’d stepped out of the church, accompanied by only the preacher who had married them and two witnesses, whom they’d persuaded to leave a nearby bar in return for free beer.

  The rain was warmer for his funeral, it was summer after all, and the view was better she supposed, out here surrounded by long swaying grass and vast turbulent skies, rather than the abattoir that had faced the church in that dirty little cattle town, whose name she had quite forgotten, where she’d married Tom McCrea.

  She no more listened to Preacher Stone’s words over Tom’s grave than she had to those of the man who’d married them. At least she had the excuse that she’d been drunk then. She could recall he’d had a kind face and a soft voice, whereas Preacher Stone had neither and looked mighty inconvenienced that Tom McCrea required a burial at all.

  She wished she was drunk now.

  Perhaps she would march into Jack’s Saloon in her sodden, mud-splattered mourning dress, throw away her veil and drink whiskey at the bar till she cared about nothing at all anymore. Maybe after that, it wouldn’t hurt so much when they got round to killing her too.

  At least it might give her the courage to tell the inhabitants of this creepy godforsaken town what she thought of them all.

  She shut her eyes as the town’s gravedigger and his apprentice lowered Tom’s coffin into its muddy socket. They were showing as much care and respect as a couple of labourers dropping a sack of rotten potatoes off the back of a wagon.

  Preacher Stone was muttering something about dust and ashes, but she wasn’t really listening. Perhaps they wouldn’t kill her, who was she anyway? She didn’t know anything; she wasn’t going to make a fuss. All she wanted to do was sell everything she and Tom had owned that wouldn’t fit into a suitcase and get out of town.

  Maybe she’d go back east, if there was anything left, or move on west. Any point of the compass would do, so long as it took her away from Hawker’s Drift – a town that seemed to have been dumped slap bang in the middle of this endless plain, as far away from anybody else as it was possible to be, for no obvious purpose.

  The land here was good as evidenced by the lush grass that would be waist high by autumn, but it was so far away from anywhere else it cost a fortune to transport grain or cattle back to civilization. Maybe if they ever got the railway going things might change, but by the time that ever happened she would be either a long way away or dead. Or maybe both.

  She realised with a start that Preacher Stone had finished, and the only sound was the rain falling on the hollow wood of Tom’s coffin. They were all looking at her; Preacher Stone, Mr Furnedge, the gravedigger and his apprentice, the horse tethered to the coffin wagon. They expected her to do something.

  She bent down and scooped a handful of mud from the pile next to the open grave; rivulets of rainwater were washing down the sides of the mound as if nature objected to the little manmade hill out here where everything was supposed to be flat. She should have taken her gloves off she supposed, they were soft black leather and expensive, but as they were going to burn along with everything else she didn’t care.

  She should say something really. Goodbye. I love you. Rest in Peace, but nothing would come. Her mouth was as dry as her eyes. Tom McCrea had never been a bad man; feckless maybe, a dreamer for sure, too fond of his drink probably and a foul temper certainly. But he’d been good to her, in his own way. Even when he got so angry with her that his eyes bulged and the veins in his neck stood out so much she feared his head might explode, he’d never laid a finger on her. Not the once. Plenty of other people he’d laid out for no good reason, which had meant they’d had to stuff their bags and get out of a town real quick, but no, he’d never laid a finger on her.

  But was that enough? Enough to follow a man for mile after thankless mile, following wherever his latest dream had led him?

  It had been more than that, of course. He’d made her laugh, now and then; they’d sat and drank whiskey till neither of them could stand. He’d never let anyone bad mouth her, he’d always carried her bag and opened the door for her. He’d been a real gent like that. He made her feel safe. Made her feel like she wasn’t alone. He made her feel, for the only time in her life, that someone gave a damn about her.

  But no, it hadn’t been enough, nowhere near enough, to bring her our here to a place as wrong as Hawker’s Drift.

  As the handful of wet earth thumped on the coffin lid, she turned her back and walked away without a second glance.

  *

  The rain had stopped before dark and she burned her funeral clothes in a large metal bucket that she’d first filled with coal. For a while she’d toyed with keeping them as Mr Furnedge had asked her to come by his office the next day to settle Tom’s affairs, but no, she couldn’t face wearing that dress again.

  It stank too much of mud and death and cheap cologne.

  Everything went into the fire; dress, shoes, shawl, veil, hat, stockings, underwear, gloves, even the pointless inadequate umbrella that Furnedge had tried to shield her with.

  She fed them into the fire one by one and stood watching till there was nought but embers and the blackened metal frame of the umbrella left. By then it was night and the moon was high and bright. She wondered if the neighbours were watching her. Mad
woman, they probably whispered. Probably whispered it long before Tom died too.

  Before Tom was murdered, she corrected herself again.

  She should let it go. There was nothing to be done here. There would be no justice, no recompense. No one would hang from the town square gallows. Better to let it go. Move on. Start again.

  Alone…

  She doused the embers and returned to the house. It was empty. She’d given the maid the day off. The girl had wanted to come to the funeral, but Molly had shaken her head. “No need to catch your death,” she’d said, not sure if she was talking about the rain or not.

  Molly sat in the big chair by the fireplace. Her hair was a mess, long and knotted; she should have combed it when it was still wet, but what was the point?

  Tom had always liked her hair; he used to run his fingers through it whenever he could. He loved both its length and colour, like rust in the sunset he’d called it once, in possibly the only poetic moment of his entire life. They had been in bed and she had been resting her head on his chest, listening to his heart when he’d whispered it to her, twisting the long strands around his fingers.

  That was the closest she’d ever come to loving him. But he was gone now, so why bother to comb it, or wash it, or doing anything at all with it? Maybe she’d chop it off, cut it short, wear britches and pretend to be a man. Maybe life would be better as a man.

  She poured herself a whiskey and then another when the first didn’t touch the sides, then sat back and stared into the dark cold fireplace.

  They’d done well here. They’d arrived with little two years earlier, and now they had a decent house, and a maid. She had a wardrobe of pretty dresses, some of them even silk, they had a big coal fire, a pantry well stocked with food, a large feather bed and heavy curtains to keep out the dark and the chill.

  Oh, and Tom had a wet, muddy hole in the ground.

  She’d never asked. Not once. It was such an obvious thing, but she had never uttered the words. Where is the money coming from Tom? She told herself it was because Tom was a proud man, he wanted to impress her, be successful for her. To make something for them and the child she’d never been able to give him. If she’d asked, it would have been questioning him; questioning the choices he’d made for them, suggesting something wasn’t right.