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

by Andy Monk

  It felt oily and ever so slightly warm as it stuck to his fingers. It was repulsive, like something excreted from a monstrous bug, but he could not stop himself rolling his finger in it till it glistened darkly in the candlelight, any more than he could stop himself taking his finger into his mouth and sucking furiously upon it. The sweet, sickening, irresistible candy setting first his tongue, then his throat and then his stomach afire. Later his blood would sing and his cock would become like iron, then he would remember nothing but the rush towards the light and the release from all his cares and burdens.

  He smeared more of the candy onto his fingers and ignored the tears that rolled down his face as much as the booming laughter that rolled around the church…

  The Gunslinger

  Amos didn’t open his eyes when he heard boots clicking on the worn flagstones, but his heart beat a little faster for an instant. Why? He wasn’t afraid of dying, though he’d feel a bit pissed to be hung for something he hadn’t actually done. Still, there were things he could deservedly swing for; life had a way of evening itself out in the end.

  He’d prefer a bullet to a noose, but was that enough to wake the fear that now coiled itself around his guts? He hadn’t felt fear in a long time; he hadn’t felt pretty much anything in a long time save his burning hatred for Severn and his men. He hadn’t cared for anyone in a long time either. Perhaps the two were connected?

  Should he have gone for his gun? He could have taken a few of them out, killing Blane would have been a generous parting gift to the world. Maybe if Molly hadn’t been there he would have, but he hadn’t wanted to put her in danger so he’d come meekly. A lamb ready for slaughter.

  “I have a few questions…”

  It was the Sheriff.

  Blane would have little time for questions, or other niceties like a trial or even the truth. He wanted him dead, and not just for the fun of it either he suspected, but the Sheriff? He seemed different to the men who worked under him, Amos had sensed that when they’d arrested him, among other things.

  “I’ve never heard of Emily Godbold,” Amos replied. He was still stretched out on the thin sweat-stained straw mattress that was draped over the musty cell’s single metal cot, hat pulled down over his face.

  There was a long drawn out sigh; a sigh of both tiredness and exasperation. It didn’t sound like the Sheriff of Hawker’s Drift was having a good day – although as his own one had taken a fairly dramatic turn towards the plug hole he couldn’t muster much in the way of sympathy.

  “It’s in your best interests to be co-operative – you do realise how much trouble you’re in?”

  “You hang rapists in this town?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then I know how much trouble I’m in.”

  Another sigh.

  “You having a bad day Sheriff?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake Amos stop farting around!”

  Now he pushed back his hat and looked up.

  “Molly?” He sat up, “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, someone’s got to try and sort this mess out before you get strung up, and as you’re making a fuckwit’s ass of the job I guess it’s up to me to save your sorry hide!”

  The Sheriff, his face crumpled into a pained grimace, was holding up a hand trying to hush Molly, with as much effect as a man flapping his arms about in front of a charging bull. Good luck with that, Amos thought, understanding why the Sheriff’s day had turned so sour.

  “Molly, don’t talk to the prisoner,” Shenan insisted, half turning to glower at her.

  She pouted and glowered back at him. If there was going to be glowering contest, the winner wasn’t going to be wearing a star.

  “I’m trying to save your time too – while you’ve got him locked up in here and your men keeping the mob out the real asshole who did this is free as a bird. Probably stalking some other poor girl while you lumps are showing off who’s got the biggest fucking pair of balls.”

  “Another word and I’ll lock you up too!”

  “But-”

  “Blane!”

  Molly glanced at the deputy as he took a step towards her. He was as expressionless as ever, though Amos had a pretty good idea he’d consider locking a woman up to be a perk of the job.

  “Shutting up…” Molly muttered, before pouting, silently.

  “Ahhh…” Shenan sighed, “…blessed hush.”

  “Send her home,” Amos said, swinging his legs off the cot to sit on the edge as he tossed his hat aside.

  “You think I haven’t tried?”

  Molly stifled a retort. It didn’t look like something that came naturally to her.

  “You are the Sheriff.”

  Shenan tapped the star on his jacket, “This carries only so much weight.”

  Amos suppressed a smile and Molly looked like she wanted to spit. Blane leaned against the back wall, thumbs hooked in his belt. Pretty much anything might have been going on in his head.

  “She shouldn’t be here.”

  “No, she shouldn’t” Shenan agreed, glancing at the unnaturally quiet Molly, “but there’s a mob outside and she’s probably safer in here.”

  “Molly didn’t do anything.”

  “No… but the folks outside want to lash out at someone and with you in here, she’s the next best target given your… friendship.”

  Amos looked at his feet, he thought about pointing out that they were only friends, but he didn’t suppose that would mean much to Shenan and even less to the townsfolk outside. It didn’t take much for people to get ugly and a hurt girl was a better motive than most. In their eyes, his guilt was already assured by his arrest and anyone associated with him would make a suitable second best.

  The Sheriff took a step forward, close enough for his belly to be touching the bars of the cell.

  “Where were you on Thursday night?” He asked, his tone becoming colder.

  “I don’t know Emily Godbold, I don’t know where Emily Godbold lives, I’ve never met Emily Godbold…” Amos rose to his feet and crossed to the cell bars “…and I didn’t rape Emily Godbold.”

  “That wasn’t what I asked.”

  “I’ve told you he was with me!” Molly insisted, two minutes of silence clearly the most she could manage in one go, “All night, in my bed, with me!”

  “Molly, be quiet!” Shenan snapped.

  Molly looked pointedly at Amos, ignoring the Sheriff as she slapped her hands onto her hips, “Go on, tell him!!!”

  Amos felt a fuzzy sense of gratitude that someone would go to the trouble of lying through their teeth for him. She actually must like him a lot.

  Molly was, he decided, really rather odd.

  “Well,” Shenan demanded, giving up on the idea of keeping Molly quiet, “were you?”

  After a moment, Amos shook his head, “No, I wasn’t.”

  “For fuck’s sake Amos, if you’re trying to protect my honour it’s too damn late for that!” Molly shouted, her face so flushed with anger and indignation that Amos momentarily had to think whether he actually had spent the night with her and had somehow managed to forget it in the meanwhile. Which would be quite a trick.

  “Where were you then?” The Sheriff demanded.

  Poking around the Mayor’s ranch because your boss had her husband killed…

  Yeah, that would get him out of here real quick.

  “I was out riding.”

  “Riding? All night?”

  “No, I slept out.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “I’ve spent the last thirteen years in the saddle – I don’t sleep too good in a bed no more and don’t feel comfortable around people. I went riding to clear my head and slept under the stars because that’s what I prefer.”

  That sounds lame even to me…

  “Anyone see you, whilst you were… clearing your head?”

  Amos thought for a moment, before nodding, “That singer from the saloon, Cece and the young fellow who’s been following her a
bout.”

  “Sye Hallows?”

  “Yeah, I bumped into them, spoke for a few minutes.”

  “When?”

  “Thursday afternoon.”

  “Where?”

  “North of town, fifteen miles maybe.”

  The Sheriff shifted his weight from one foot to the other and pursed his lips.

  “Near the Mayor’s place?”

  Amos shrugged innocently, “I dunno, I’m not from round here.”

  Blane was staring at him intently. Molly, meanwhile, was just looking pissed.

  “Plenty of time to get back into town and attack Emily.”

  “If I had, then why on Earth would I have come back?” Amos gripped the bars that separated him from the Sheriff, “It’s one thing to be a sick bastard, it’s another to be a complete fool. I have no reason to stay here, I could have been long gone by now.”

  “In my experience people do all kinds of crazy, particularly the really sick ones.”

  “I told you, I don’t know this Emily girl and I didn’t rape her.”

  “Then why does she say you did?

  “What did she say exactly? That some tall stranger attacked her? What makes you think it’s me?”

  “Because she named you. She said it was Amos, the gunslinger.”

  Amos frowned, the Sheriff wasn’t lying. He got no sense of deceit coming off the man. He might get a clearer picture if he touched him, but he didn’t think Shenan would take kindly to being grabbed through the bars. They were only inches apart however; close enough for the man’s soul to wash over him as pungently as his breath.

  He’d eaten pickles recently and he wasn’t yet entirely convinced Amos was guilty.

  “You heard her say this?”

  “No… but her parents and Preacher Stone did, and they were all quite clear about what she said.”

  Amos shook his head, “I’ve been in town for a week, I’ve barely spoken more than a few words to anyone other than Molly… Cece, Sye, John the gunsmith… the Mayor, your deputy over there… but nobody else, how would she even know my name, let alone how I make a living?”

  “That’s what I told him!” Molly chipped in.

  “It’s a small town, people have been talking about your relationship with Mrs McCrea, you might not realise it, but you’re quite the celebrity,” Shenan said.

  The Mayor? He was thinking.

  “Are young girls usually included in the town’s gossip?”

  “It’s a small town… and Emily’s sixteen, old enough to pick up on her elder’s chitchat.”

  “I wouldn’t know her age, given I’ve never met her.”

  The Sheriff gave a little snort.

  “What happened to her?”

  “You know what happened to her.”

  “Tell me exactly.”

  Shenan mulled it over before replying. “Someone got into her room while she was asleep, this… someone, beat and raped her and left her unconscious. Her mother found her in the morning; she came round this afternoon and said you did it.”

  “Was there a lantern on in the room?”

  “No, she was asleep.”

  Amos steepled his fingers as if in prayer as he spoke slowly, “So, she was woken in the middle of the night, beaten, raped. She’s sixteen, she would have been terrified, it would have been pitch black. And she recognised me? A man she’s never met, a man, at most, she may have heard of, may have passed in the street? Does that sound likely?”

  “She said it was you,” the Sheriff insisted, but his voice didn’t carry much conviction and his thoughts even less.

  “Sounds like bullshit to me,” Molly offered.

  “Blane, lock her up!”

  “Hey!” Molly wailed as Blane gripped her arm and pulled her towards the cell furthest from Amos,' “you can’t lock me up for speaking my mind!”

  “Nope, I can’t,” Shenan agreed, “but I can lock you up for providing a false alibi.”

  “Sheriff…” Amos pleaded.

  “You can listen to her for a while, my ears need a rest,” Shenan said as Blane slammed the cell door on Molly.

  “She’s only trying-”

  “I know exactly what she was trying to do,” Shenan snapped, before adding in a softer voice, “I’ll kick her loose tomorrow morning, the crowd will have gone home by then. Hopefully.”

  Amos nodded as the Sheriff turned towards Blane, “Go sort out some food for our guests.”

  Blane gave Shenan a dark look, which pretty much encompassed his full range of reactions, before heading up the stairs, keys jangling on his belt.

  Once he was out of earshot the Sheriff turned back to face Amos, “You said you’d spoken to the Mayor?”

  “I had the pleasure.”

  “What did he want?”

  “What makes you think he wanted anything?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  “He offered me a job,” Amos replied after a moment.

  “Doing what?”

  “Working for you.”

  Shenan raised an eyebrow that resembled a particularly ill-groomed caterpillar.

  “Guess he’s in charge of recruitment in this town, huh?”

  “His fingers are pretty much in everybody’s pies.”

  “I bet.”

  “You take the job?”

  “You think I’d be in here if I had?”

  “You saying you been framed?”

  Amos shrugged and leaned in close enough for his forehead to press against the cold metal of the cell bars.

  “Three possibilities Sheriff; either I did it, Emily has mistaken me for someone else or this is a set-up of some kind. I know I didn’t do it, I don’t see how she could mistake me for someone else given we’ve never met, so that leaves a set-up – dunno how they got her to say my name though. Some trick, huh?”

  Shenan’s brow was creased and Amos could feel uncertainty, unease and confusion pouring out of him. Along with a name he didn’t know, but one that clearly meant a lot to the Sheriff because it was lantern bright in his head.

  “I’ll go talk to the girl tomorrow; you’re staying here for now. It’s safer,” Shenan nodded before turning and slowly walking away, touching his hat as he sauntered past Molly.

  Amos looked across the intervening empty cell at Molly, who was standing in the corner staring at him. For some reason, she looked faintly pleased with herself; which was worrying.

  “Molly,” he said, once he heard Shenan close the door at the top of the cells, “who is Donny Bildt?”

  *

  “This mattress is shit.”

  “If you’ve got a more comfortable one at home,” Amos muttered, “you should have stayed there.”

  “Sheesh…” Molly sniffed, “…gratitude.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “To get you out?”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “A little lying might have helped with that.”

  “He wouldn’t have believed it – and neither would a jury.”

  “Yeah, how silly, obviously no one would believe a man might want to spend the night with me.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “It’s the effect I have, men just go into a panic and make a dash for the door as soon as I flutter my eyelashes. Dunno what the Mayor’s thinking. I won’t make a dime for him in the cat house.”

  “You’re not going to let that go are you?”

  “Nope.”

  There was silence for a while. Amos was lying on his back, Blane had turned the lanterns at either end of the cell block down after he’d collected their plates, but not off. They still gave off a sickly orange glow that made the stale, damp-scented air even more oppressive.

  “I didn’t do it, in case you were wondering.” Amos said after a while.

  “Do what?”

  “Hurt that girl.”

  “If I thought you did, I wouldn’t be helping you.”

  She actually wasn’t helping him at all, but it seemed unappre
ciative to point that out.

  “I’ve done some pretty bad things in my time, but never anything like that.”

  “It’s too soon for confessions.”

  “They’re not going to hang me.”

  “You think?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Got a better alibi than me?”

  “The Sheriff doesn’t think I did it.”

  “You could tell that huh? Mr Mysterio strikes again.”

  “Well, he has doubts at any rate. He’s not like Blane, or some of the other deputies.”

  “Hate to piddle on your parade, but it don’t matter what the Sheriff thinks, it’s what twelve good men think – and a pretty young girl telling ‘em you attacked her… they might be more easily persuaded.”

  “It won’t go to a jury.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Amos stared at the ceiling, there were cracks in the plaster and his eyes followed them, trying to make crude stick figures.

  “Amos?”

  “Trust me, I have… just trust me Molly.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “It will.”

  “But if it doesn’t?”

  Molly, he realised, had a certain child-like quality about her at times, although not necessarily in the endearing way.

  “Then I’ll think of something else,” he sighed.

  “Have you escaped from jail before?”

  “We should get some sleep.”

  “This mattress is shit.”

  “Yeah, you said, but there isn’t much else to do.”

  He heard Molly’s cot creek as she climbed to her feet, “There’s something I’d like to show you…” she whispered through the cell bars.

  Amos rolled reluctantly onto his stomach, Molly was bent over by the bars of her cell, hitching up her skirt and petticoat to reveal her stockinged legs.

  “Don’t look so worried, you’ll like it… Tom said it was a really good one,” she winked.

  Amos’ eyes widened as his heart sank; dear God, did the woman never let up!

  “We’re in a jail, Molly, I know there’s not much to pass the time, but really-” he stopped and peered once she straightened up, the hem of her skirts clutched in her hands and her legs splayed apart.