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

  And of course, something wasn’t right, but she’d said nothing, not because of Tom’s pride, but because she hadn’t cared. Life was suddenly good, comfortable, there was no more running from town to town, often in the middle of the night, because of Tom’s temper or Tom’s hair-brained schemes or Tom’s debts.

  Did it actually matter where the money was coming from? He was close to the Mayor, so he couldn’t be doing anything wrong. Could he?

  Except… except there shouldn’t be so much money in Hawker’s Drift. There was nothing here. A few farms, a few ranches, but their produce went to feed the town. There were no mines, no industry, no manufacturing. There were few travellers as the road to Hawker’s Drift didn’t go anywhere else. Nothing to bring in money. Yet the shops were always well stocked, not just with essentials, but fancy stuff too, like the silk dresses and the silly underwear Tom had liked her to wear for him.

  The saloon and restaurants were always full, the shops were always busy. Nobody seemed to go without, even the people in the shacks down on the Flats got by easily enough, and the town’s few vagrants and vagabonds never starved. There were no church soup kitchens, no crowds of desperate rough-handed men forming when someone was hiring, no threadbare children begging for scraps, no real crime as far as she knew. Nothing like the other places she and Tom had drifted through.

  There were more young people and children here too, not that the place was devoid of old timers, but it didn’t look like a walking cemetery like some of the places she’d been to either.

  Hawker’s Drift was a prosperous town, but she’d never figured out why it was so different to most other places.

  Tom had become strange and distant in the weeks before his death, the way he usually did when things were starting to go wrong. He wouldn’t tell her of course, he never did. But she’d started to worry more and more about the money they had. Was the Mayor really paying him that much? Had he been stealing it? The thought had crossed her mind more and more, but she’d never asked and Tom just became more distant, more withdrawn. And then he died.

  Ever since Sheriff Shenan had come to tell her about Tom’s “accident”, people had been uncomfortable around her. Staring at her. Whispering. Falling silent when she came near. She had the feeling she was being watched too. Just her imagination perhaps, but she didn’t think so.

  Tom was dead, and she felt like she was a loose end that someone wanted to put a knot in.

  She downed another whiskey and tried to convince herself she was being stupid. Was it likely anyone would actually want her dead?

  Who was she anyway?

  Molly McCrea. 32 years old. Red hair. Green eyes. Long nose. Full lips. Big mouth. Widow.

  “Molly McCrea…” she muttered, staring into the bottom of her glass.

  Perhaps she should go back to her maiden name, though she’d always hated it. The opportunity to be rid of it was one of the reasons she’d agreed to marry Tom in the first place. She’d liked his name. It wasn’t a great reason to marry a man, but she hadn’t been able to think of many and it had seemed as good as anything else she could come up with at the time.

  “Molly Herbert…”

  No. She still hated it. The name reminded her of her father, who, like Tom, had been a drunk and a slob, but, unlike Tom, had laid a hand upon her at every possible opportunity. Albert Herbert; an evil son of a bitch who had made the first eighteen years of her life a misery. Bert-Bert they’d called him in the saloons where he’d spent most of his life and nearly all of their money. A big man, with a big mouth and a big gut, who was always happy to spend money buying strangers a drink, but resented every dime it cost him to put food on his family’s table.

  No, she didn’t want to carry his name again.

  She’d run away in the end, believing a life on the road would be better than staying at home to be abused. Instead, she’d followed a string of men who, more or less, had been little better than Bert-Bert.

  She was tall, with striking red hair and intense green eyes. Men noticed her. She could drink most of them under the table. She had a loud dirty laugh and a brash mouth that could be both quick and foul if she let it run away with her. Which she usually did.

  She’d followed one useless waster after the next, never knowing what she saw in them, especially when they screwed other women, blew all their money on cards or whiskey and slapped her face if she made too much of a fuss about anything.

  Tom had been different. In fact, he’d seemed like a knight in shining armour in comparison, for all his faults he’d been a better man than any other she’d ever lain with. It was just a shame she’d never been able to love him.

  Now he was gone and if she ever got out of this town alive she’d probably end up with another piece of trash like Bert-Bert Herbert, no matter how many times she told herself she wouldn’t.

  Molly hauled herself to her feet and went upstairs to the silent bedroom. She opened up the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out the gun that was wrapped in a cloth beneath Tom’s shirts.

  He’d tried to teach her how to use it once. Lining up old bottles on a fence, he’d shown her how to load and fire the weapon. She hadn’t managed to hit anything with it, though she had scared the hell out of the wildlife.

  Tom had grinned and told her if she ever needed to hit something more threatening than an old beer bottle, she should try to look like she knew what she was doing, cuss as much as possible and hope she’d frighten them off without needing to pull the trigger as he doubted she’d ever trouble a barn door from more than five paces away.

  Molly loaded the pistol and returned downstairs to her chair; placing the gun in her lap and pouring herself another large whiskey. She doubted the booze would help her aim much, but it usually did wonders for her cussing.

  *

  Molly awoke with a fuzzy head from too much whiskey and a sore neck from sleeping in a chair. Bright sunlight was creeping around the corners of the room’s heavy drapes.

  Tom’s old pistol still lay on her lap. She hadn’t needed it after all and, as an added bonus, she’d avoided shooting herself in her sleep to boot.

  After carefully placing the gun next to the half empty whiskey bottle, she pulled open the curtains and winced at the light that eagerly rushed in.

  Perhaps they weren’t interested in her after all.

  She rubbed her watery eyes with her palms. The window faced due east and the morning sun was blindingly bright. The sky was dark blue and cloudless. Trust Tom to get himself buried on such a foul day; she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Tom’s timing had always been lousy. She had used to tease him about it, how he would always choose the worst possible moment to do anything. Sometimes it annoyed him; sometimes a big slow smile would spread over his face.

  She missed him.

  Strange, she never thought she would. She’d always known they wouldn’t be together forever. One day either he’d get bored with her and find himself another woman or his temper or tomfoolery would get him killed. She’d been wrong about a lot of things in her life, but she’d been right about that one. Pity it hadn’t been another woman, she’d rather he was lying in another’s bed than a muddy hole right now.

  A woman who actually loved him.

  Had he known she’d never loved him? He’d told her regularly that he loved her. It had taken a long time for her to believe him; it just seemed so unlikely that any man would, and she’d just put his words down to the fact that he wanted to keep her sweet and in his bed.

  Eventually, long after they’d been married, it dawned on her that he genuinely did love her. As far as she knew he’d never been with another woman from the day they had met, on a dusty stagecoach trundling between somewhere and nowhere.

  Sometimes she would catch him staring at her and he would have the strangest little smile on his big round face. Like a man might have if he opened his door one day and found a whopping pile of gold coins for no obvious reason. He looked like he couldn’t really believe his luck. />
  She’d often wondered what that must be like and why she couldn’t return the feeling. Perhaps her father had burnt it out of her; perhaps she’d been born with a little bit of her soul missing. She had never figured it out.

  She was about to head to the pantry to make breakfast when she noticed two figures across the road, leaning on Mrs Claybourne’s rough little fence. Their hats were pulled down low; it was hard to make them out against the glare of the harsh morning sun, but she knew who they were alright.

  One of the men put two fingers against the brim of his hat in greeting.

  She stepped away from the window. Someone seemed to be interested in her after all.

  *

  Mr Furnedge, as he usually did, stank of cologne. He seemed to be of the belief that pouring copious amounts of perfume over himself negated the need for a regular bath. He must have quite a collection at home as he never quite smelled the same from one day to the next. This morning he’d masked his body odour with the delicate of aroma of aniseed and embalming fluid, or so it seemed to Molly.

  She tried hard not to wrinkle her nose. She really did.

  “Are you unwell Mrs McCrea?”

  “Just a little nauseous. I’m sure it will pass quickly.”

  “Good, good…” He eased himself back into his chair and indicated the one on the opposite side of his desk.

  “I hope you managed to sleep well after yesterday’s… ordeal?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Molly patted down her skirt, clutched her bag on her lap and hoped he couldn’t smell the whiskey over his own fumes.

  “Of course, such a tragedy… our thoughts are all with you my dear.” He gave her what he probably considered his most sincere smile, though personally she wouldn’t have trusted the man to sell her a bucket without a hole in it.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  She glanced behind Furnedge, but the window was frosted and she couldn’t see if the two men who had followed her less than discreetly from her home to his office were waiting for her in the street outside.

  “Yes, yes… I am so sorry to intrude in your time of mourning.” If he had noticed she was no longer dressed head to toe in black he didn’t comment.

  “Life goes on.”

  “Yes,” he said more brightly, “indeed it does!”

  Molly opened her bag and produced a sheaf of papers which she slid across the desk. “My husband’s last will and testament, naming me as his sole beneficiary. I’m sure you will find everything in order, particularly as you drew the papers up in this very office.”

  Furnedge made no move to pick up the will. “They are perfectly in order. All legal and proper. All most tickety. Mr McCrea was very particular about the details. A prudent man. Most prudent.”

  This was news to Molly, who had always found Tom to be exceedingly imprudent about pretty much everything.

  When he’d told her he was drawing up his will she’d been taken aback, two weeks to the day after the will was signed, he was dead. It had been just one of a series of things that Tom had done during the last weeks of his life that should have told her something was very, very wrong.

  “I will be leaving town shortly, once our things are sold. They don’t amount to much, so I don’t envisage the matter taking long.”

  “Leaving us?” Furnedge frowned.

  “There is nothing here for me. I have relatives… back east.”

  Other than a couple of half-witted second cousins she hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years she had nobody in the world, but she didn’t want the little lawyer to know how alone she was.

  “Well, I’m sure, but we all hoped you would be staying with us. You’re a valued member of our little family here in Hawker’s Drift.”

  So valued nobody bothered to come to my husband’s funeral…

  “There are too many memories here.”

  “Of course, but it is so soon. To leave all this behind… to act rashly can be a mistake.”

  “I have made up my mind.”

  “Well, I can only wish you the best Mrs McCrea. Wherever you end up.”

  Furnedge had always vaguely given her the creeps, she hadn’t worried about it much in the past because Tom was prone to try and rip off the head of any man who even looked at her the wrong way, a habit that had gotten them into trouble several times. Molly had found it more than a little irritating; she’d learned to look after herself where men were concerned a long time before she’d met Tom. A barbed put down was usually enough to keep unwanted advances at bay, generally with far less blood and recrimination too. Now she was alone again and felt terribly vulnerable, even in the company of the town’s puny and overly fragrant lawyer, who, at a push, she could probably beat to a bloody pulp with her handbag.

  There was something about Furnedge’s eyes she didn’t like; narrow, sly, scheming little slits, distorted by the thick rimless glasses he wore. Actually, that wasn’t true, there was a whole list of things about the lawyer she didn’t like, but the eyes were the worst, the way they lingered on her, like a snake eyeing a mouse and calculating just what he had to do to gobble it up.

  “So if the will is in order…” she began to rise to her feet.

  “There is no issue with the will… however there is one complication.” Furnedge seemed almost to smack his thick lips together as he pronounced the word “complication,” as if he found the taste of it to his liking.

  Molly sank back into her chair, “Complication?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing too serious my dear, easily rectified, easily made tickety,” Furnedge pulled out a paper folder which he placed directly in front of him, resting his hands upon it as if to prevent Molly snatching it away.

  “As well as you late husband’s estate, you also inherit his debts.”

  “What debts?” Molly demanded, though her heart sank. Tom had always been adept at running up debts. And running away from them too.

  “Well…” Furnedge opened the folder and started laying out bills, “…it appears Mr McCrea bought considerable provisions shortly before his death. All on credit.”

  “Such as?”

  “A horse… two pack mules… a tent… various tools… a rifle… binoculars… dry provisions for several months… a pickaxe… a-”

  “What an earth would my husband want with all that?

  “Well, I assumed you knew. Didn’t he mention it?”

  “It seems to have slipped his mind.”

  “It would appear to be prospecting equipment.”

  “Prospecting for what?”

  “Gold, presumably.”

  “There’s no gold here! There’s nothing here but fucking grass!”

  Furnedge stared at her before clearing his throat with a scratchy little cough.

  If he complains about my language, I’m going to slap him…

  “There is equipment here for gold panning…” Furnedge continued, “…not to mention a fairly substantial amount of dynamite.”

  Molly realised her mouth was hanging open. “Dynamite? Why would he want dynamite? Where would he even get dynamite in this town?”

  “Oh Mrs McCrea. You can get most anything in Hawker’s Drift. If you know who to go to.” Furnedge’s eyes had narrowed even further than usual.

  Molly thought she’d read somewhere a snake couldn’t bite with its eyes open.

  “How much?” She demanded, “How much does my husband owe?”

  “Your husband owes nothing Mrs McCrea, on account of being dead. You, however, owe this…”

  He pushed a piece of paper across the desk with a number on it. An exceedingly large number.

  “I haven’t got this! Everything I own doesn’t come to a fraction of this!”

  “Do not fret Mrs McCrea; I have taken the liberty of speaking to your creditor on your behalf. There is great sympathy, given the circumstances. You have three months to clear your debt or return the purchases in satisfactory condition.”

  Furnedge pushed the invoices across th
e desk.

  “I’ve never seen any of these things!” Molly protested.

  “Well, this isn’t a large town Mrs McCrea, I’m sure you’ll be able to find and return them in short order. Unless you have a use for pack mules and dynamite of course?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well then, you just need to return them and the matter will be closed. No harm done. Everything tickety.”

  “I see,” Molly flicked through the various invoices, all dated in the weeks before Tom’s death. What damn fool nonsense had he gotten himself involved in this time?

  She felt like telling Furnedge exactly where he could shove his paperwork, but she bit down on the impulse. Her fast mouth had gotten them into trouble almost as often as Tom’s temper and foolhardy schemes in the past, the only difference being she had eventually learned to control her tongue. Mostly.

  “I will set about returning these items at once,” Molly managed to push a grudging smile onto her face, “who exactly are my creditors Mr Furnedge?”

  “Just one creditor Mrs McCrea, it seems your husband wasn’t one for shopping around.”

  “And he would be?”

  “The Mayor.”

  “I see,” Molly said, trying to sound calm, “if we’re quite finished I should get to work.”

  “Of course, there is one small condition you should be aware of.”

  “Yes?”

  “If you leave the town limits before the debt is discharged then payment will become immediately due.”

  “And if I can’t pay?”

  “Then the Mayor will have to be recompensed for his loss in other ways...”

  Furnedge smiled, and Molly swore his big fat tongue almost slithered out of his mouth in excitement.

  The Gunslinger

  Amos arrived at the stables just in time to be mowed down by a tall woman, who wore her wild red hair in a loose ponytail and her face in a crumpled scowl.

  “Asshole,” she spat at him after he’d bounced off the stable door.