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

  The applause was joined by whistles, shouts, foot stomping and palms being slapped on tables; everybody was standing, those at the back had raised their hands above their heads, one particularly enthusiastic fellow was jumping up and down, his arms flailing about as if he were engaged in maniacal star jumps.

  Cece felt her cheeks redden and she flashed an awkward little smile; she wondered how they would have responded to something more upbeat than a song about heroin addiction. Spontaneous combustion?

  Every time she had sung more people had been in the saloon than the night before. Monty had insisted she performed every night; he wanted his monies worth for the pokey little attic room and kitchen leftovers he was paying her with. Tonight, by the time she had made her way to the piano the place had been stuffed to the rafters. She wasn’t sure how many people would usually have been here, but from the way Monty was grinning from ear to ear, she suspected it was an exceptionally good night for Jack’s. The saloon girls were looking equally flustered and busy, though not necessarily as pleased as Monty.

  She recognised a few of the faces, though most were new to her. The farm boy Sye was at the front, where he’d been when she’d glanced down from the first floor balcony almost two hours before she was due to start singing. He seemed very keen. Not just on her singing either she suspected. At least he seemed harmless, which she couldn’t say about some of the other men who’d been staring at her during her performance.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and hoped she just looked like she was milking the applause. Why had she come here? Really? She could have said no after all. There were so many other things she could have done with her life, but she’d chosen to come here. To this dirty little outpost of humanity. It had seemed important, not so very long ago, now… now she wasn’t so sure.

  She’d felt so confident before, so capable of handling anything the world could throw at her, but that had been when she’d been with her friends, had her family to fall back on. And Quayle of course, who she had never expected to miss as much as she did. Now she was alone, utterly alone, and she felt like a small lost little girl.

  This was a dangerous place, most of the men carried guns and even the ones that didn’t looked like they could break her clean in two with no trouble at all. Quite a few of them looked like they’d enjoy doing it too.

  It was the way they stared at her that unnerved her the most. She hadn’t thought that would have been the biggest problem coming here. She’d had plenty of practice in being stared at by men after all, and as much as she told herself that men were much the same wherever they were, once you boiled off the manners, culture and learning at least, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the men here actually were different. Bestial, hungry, savage. Pick your word, they all unnerved her much the same.

  She tried to ignore their stares, along with the haze of smoke that burned her throat and the stink of warm beer and warmer bodies that permeated the place. She’d heard about men undressing women with their eyes, but had thought it just a saying, however now that she stood before the bellowing crowd, she felt at least half-naked, and she didn’t doubt a significant proportion of the men in the place would happily finish the job with their rough bare hands given half the chance.

  So, she’d concentrated on her singing and trying to get something vaguely in tune to come out of the old piano, using the music as a blanket to wrap around herself while her eyes slid across the crowd, not lingering on any one spot. That’s what she tried to do anyway.

  There was a man sitting at the front, dressed in an immaculate black three-piece suit her gaze stubbornly refused to ignore. He had an eye patch, which didn’t entirely make him unique amongst the patrons of Jack’s Saloon given there were a number of men missing body parts of some kind. He did stand out for being clean though, his clothes were spotless, his hair greased and neatly combed back, his beard almost surgically trimmed.

  He wasn’t sitting at a table, a chair had been brought out especially for him, he’d arrived only a few minutes before she had started to sing, the saloon was already packed, but the crowd parted for him and the chair had been brought out and placed before her piano. Even Sye had shuffled aside without complaint.

  Although the chair was not exactly a throne, that’s what it reminded Cece of; it was heavy and sturdy, whereas most of the chairs in the saloon would splinter to firewood if you threw them against a wall (or a fellow drinker’s head), this one looked like it would go clean through. High-backed and thick-legged, it was clearly a special chair.

  The man wasn’t alone; two others had positioned themselves behind him. They were the only two people in the saloon, other than a couple of the saloon girls, who hadn’t clapped her during the entire night. They had remained blank-faced as their gaze continually swept the crowd. They wore silver stars pinned beneath the long coats they never took off despite the heat generated by so many bodies in one confined smoky place. She supposed they were town deputies, though “goons” might be a more accurate title.

  Neither of the men had said a word, they hadn’t taken a drink and their hands never wandered far from the heavy functional gun belts slung around their waists. They were neither young nor old; their faces were weathered, hard and quite, quite expressionless. They looked like military men to Cece, though she knew there was nothing that passed for a military out here. They did, however, represent what passed for the law, and she suspected that the law was pretty much whatever the man with the eye patch said it was.

  She didn’t know the man’s title, but king or emperor would pass as well as any other. Hawker’s Drift was his domain. It might be small, remote and worthless, but it was all his.

  As the hubbub begun to diminish and a sizeable portion of the crowd crashed against the bar in a sudden thirsty wave, Sye appeared in front of her, eyes and grin both about as wide as a human face was capable of bearing.

  “That was incredible! You sound better every time you sing!”

  Cece twitched her shoulders, “Well, I am a bit rusty, I haven’t sung properly for a while.”

  “That’s just a crime. Really… you should be on the biggest stage in the world!”

  She laughed now, from most people such gratuitous flattery would have smacked of ingratiation, but Sye’s face was open and honest enough for her to believe he genuinely meant what he was gushing.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that… it gets me by.”

  “You should be doing more than just getting by!” He looked at an old chipped brandy glass that sat atop the piano in expectation of tips, empty save for a couple of derisory coins, “you going to take that around?”

  Cece pulled a face, “If people want to tip they can, but I’m not going to beg. I get food and lodgings.”

  Sye snorted, “You’re doubling Monty’s takings, he should be paying you a damn sight more than that!” He suddenly looked aghast, “sorry Miss, I didn’t mean to cuss.”

  “That’s ok, really. I’ve heard worse…” she looked up at him before adding, “and please, call me Cece, not Miss. I’m not a school teacher.”

  “Of course!” Sye beamed, “I knew that, all school teachers are kinda old and crabby.”

  “I don’t think that’s actually a requirement for the job.”

  “No? I guess you weren’t schooled in Hawker’s Drift then…”

  “Can’t say I was.”

  He grinned and spent an almost indecent amount of time looking at her, before snatching up the glass, “Well, if you aren’t going to get these skinflints to pay you your worth, I will.”

  “No, Sye please…” she laughed, as he began bounding puppyishly around the saloon, thrusting the brandy glass in people’s faces and demanding money. Hopefully he knew what he was doing.

  “He is right you know, you are worth more than a few dimes…” Cece turned around to find the one-eyed man behind her. She hadn’t noticed how incongruous his eye patch was from a distance, the saloon was very dimly lit after all, but up close she could see
it was just a cracked and balding scrap of ancient leather fixed around his head with a frayed boot lace. On most of Jack’s clientele that would have complimented their attire perfectly, but against this man’s spotless black cotton suit, crisp pressed white shirt and meticulous grooming it seemed singularly odd.

  “People generally get what they’re worth, in the end …”

  “People generally get what they take, Miss Jones,” he corrected, his eyebrow clicking up a notch.

  “You have me at an advantage, I have no idea what your name is sir?” Cece replied hesitantly, there was something decidedly odd about the man’s good eye, she didn’t want to be rude and stare at it, but it seemed to move constantly. Not randomly, but in small, precise, almost, mechanical movements.

  “I’m the Mayor,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it before she even realised what he was doing, “welcome to Hawker’s Drift.”

  Ah, the Mayor, but you think of yourself in grander terms than that I bet.

  “I still don’t know your name?”

  “Mr Mayor usually gets my attention.”

  “Mr Mayor? Does that mean you were christened with something terribly embarrassing, like Hubert Fartwangel?”

  He looked momentarily surprised as if he were used to a little more deference, but then let out a bellowing laugh, “Why, I think you are going to fit in here most pleasingly – we need a little songbird to brighten our lives so far away from everywhere.”

  Cece wasn’t sure she liked the term “little songbird” but wasn’t going to argue with the Mayor over his choice of words. He was a man, she decided, it didn’t pay to cross. “I shall do my best.”

  The Mayor’s attention slid beyond Cece to the sad old excuse of a piano she’d being playing, “That thing, on the other hand, makes an awful din.”

  “I’ve tried to retune it,” Cece sighed, “but really it needs to be put down.”

  “Agreed,” the Mayor flicked his jacket back and rested his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol, “will one bullet to the head do the job, or will it require all six?”

  He stared at her impassively, his eye, for once, coming to a rest upon her as if, finally, she had done enough to warrant his full and undivided attention. He cracked a glittering smile and let his hand slide away from the gun. “I will have a word with Mr Jack; you should have the tools for the job even if he is too graceless to pay you your worth.”

  “Are good pianos easy to come by out here?”

  “Everything is possible here; you just need to know the right person to ask.”

  “Would the right person be you, Mr Mayor?”

  “Oh, I can get pretty much anything the heart desires.”

  “For the right price?”

  “Of course, everything has a price,” he cracked that smile again and his eye seemed to sparkle.

  Cece blinked, it hadn’t metaphorically sparkled, it seemed, for just a moment, to have literally sparkled as if beneath the goo of his eyeball a diamond had caught the last rays of a setting sun. Which was silly of course - the light was just poor here. Nothing else.

  “And what would the price of a good piano be?”

  “Oh, for you, not so very much. Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to come over to my home one evening and sing just for me. I think I would like that.”

  To Cece’s ears that sounded pretty much like a euphemism.

  “And your good lady wife? Does she enjoy music?”

  “Alas,” he sighed, “there is no Mrs Mayor.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Because I am so devilishly handsome and charming?”

  “No,” Cece shook her head, “it’s just unusual for a man of your age to be single.”

  The Mayor threw back his head and laughed again

  “Oh Miss Jones, I can assure you I may be old, but I look very good for my age.”

  “If you get me a good piano I will sing for you Mr Mayor,” she smiled. What was the harm? It wasn’t a good idea to antagonise the most powerful man in town, even if the town was a backward pile of sticks in the middle of nowhere. Besides, the chances of him conjuring a piano out of thin air were, she reckoned, fairly remote.

  “Splendid,” the Mayor beamed, “I’m sure I will see you again soon.” With that he nodded, spun on his heels and plunged into the milling crowd of drinkers. His two shadows lingered to examine her; their eyes cold, their lips unmoving, before they too turned and followed their master.

  I can look after myself; he’s nothing I can’t deal with. Just because he wears a clean suit, doesn’t make him any different from the rest of these savages.

  She turned back to close the lid on the piano, Sye was standing behind her, the brandy glass now half full with coins. He’d been watching her talk to the Mayor and he wore a strange look upon his open face. It took Cece only a moment to recognise it as it was a look she’d seen many times before.

  It was anguish.

  The Gunsmith

  Ash Godbold was a punctilious man, he arrived for work at exactly 9am every morning except Sunday, took fifteen minutes precisely to eat his lunch on the back stoop of Hawker’s Drift’s only barbershop, and he was always back home for dinner at 6pm every day bar Wednesday, when he took the family to eat at Rosa’s. Rain, shine, snow or any of the other freaky weather they got out here.

  It was, therefore, something of a surprise to his wife, Kate, when he came home at a little after 10.30am. It was also a surprise, not to mention an inconvenience, to John X Smith as well, given Mrs Godbold was enthusiastically blowing him at the time.

  “Oh shiiit!” she hissed, almost silently, as soon as her mouth was empty. Then she just knelt there looking up at him, blue eyes wide and cute mouth agape.

  Damned inconvenient.

  “You home hun?” Her husband called from downstairs, to John X’s ears, which had some experience in these matters, he sounded distracted, but not furious. It was the voice of a man who’d come home early for some innocent and mundane reason, rather than that of a man who knew his wife had been up to no good and was about to settle some scores, with either his fists or a shotgun. He probably did a terrific line in cut-throat razors too.

  However, if the delightful Kate were to remain in her current position much longer, that might change.

  Taking her hands he hauled Kate Godbold to her feet, “Go down, tell him you had a bad head,” he whispered, before quickly kissing the end of her slightly upturned nose.

  She spread her arms and looked down at herself. She was quite naked. The gunsmith had a look too, he genuinely couldn’t help himself at times; she was a little thick around the middle perhaps, but not in bad shape at all, smallish pert breasts, long straight strawberry blonde hair, a few freckles across her cheeks, looked younger than she was. He thought she was as cute as a button.

  “Hun?!”

  He grabbed the robe he’d pulled off her and flung over the end of the bed five minutes earlier, and pushed her gently towards the bedroom door.

  “Up here baby, got a bit of a head!”

  John X indicated his only slightly shrivelling cock and winked.

  You!!! She mouthed silently before calling out, “Something wrong?”

  He nodded towards the window as he made himself decent. She shook her head frantically and pointed across the landing towards the kids’ rooms with an urgent jabbing motion. Her room looked out over the front, hard to explain a semi-naked black man shining down your drainpipe to the neighbours he supposed.

  “Bad head too… think I’m coming down with something…”

  John X pulled on his shirt, which was the only garment he’d gotten around to taking off – if Ash had taken just a little longer to get home things would have been even more inconvenient – and waited, listening to Kate go down and fuss over her husband. Ash, bless him, wasn’t the brightest star in the firmament; hopefully he would put his wife’s flushed complexion and tousled hair down to her being unwell. If he noticed her at all.

 
; John X had learnt a long time ago that plenty of men hardly noticed their wives at all.

  He could hear the Godbold’s talking, too quietly for him to follow exactly what was being said, but the voices faded as Kate led her husband away from the hallway. John X looked down at his booted feet. Should he take them off? It would be quieter to pad across the landing in his socks, but he didn’t want to hang around a moment longer. Although Ash Godbold was a burly man, he wasn’t known for having a temper; however, discovering your wife was cheating on you was usually an excellent way of finding one.

  John X tip-toed across the landing and through the open door, thankfully the floorboards weren’t warped or loose and he crossed silently.

  The Godbold’s eldest daughter’s room was small and tidy; Kate was quite fastidious about tidiness, when she wasn’t being unfaithful anyway. A few old stuffed toys sat on the bed’s crisply folded sheets, awaiting the girl’s return. The room smelt fresh and clean, and he felt an additional thrill being somewhere he shouldn’t be, doing something he shouldn’t be doing. It made him feel alive, which, for a long time, he hadn’t really been.

  He’d never been in the room before, Emily Godbold was only sixteen after all and, therefore, of no interest to him (in a few years, maybe, but not now), and he took a moment to be sure of his bearings. The window was open and looked out over the Godbold’s backyard, which was small and shaded by a couple of cherry trees.

  He could hear no voices, he hoped Kate had steered her husband to the front of the house. Yes, he was sure she would. She was bright enough to work that one out. He popped his head through the window; there was a sloping veranda beneath, then a short drop into the garden.

  “And with a single bound he was free…” John X smiled, and checked the room again, still empty, no sound of heavy anxious footsteps on the stairs. He sat on the window ledge, slung one leg outside, ducked under the raised window and brought his trailing leg over. Without pausing, he edged down the veranda which didn’t feel entirely solid; it was only a shallow roof covering the back porch of the house. He hoped Ash hadn’t decided to clear his head by sitting in the shade to take some air while he sipped lemonade. Although seeing the town’s gunsmith suddenly falling into the backyard might make him forget about his sore head for a bit.