by J K Ellem
As he reached the town limits Shaw dropped his speed to forty-five miles an hour and the scenery abruptly changed from rural to urban decay. Shaw felt a tinge of sadness as he drove through the outskirts. Abandoned warehouses, an old bank building, boarded-up workshops, rows of dull-grey cinderblock, faded business placards, cracked neon signs, parking lots overgrown with weeds. A place where things used to get made, where steel was shaped into things, lathes turned, metal was pressed and welds ran true, straight and lasted.
Often the new fast Interstate highway that ran parallel to the old highway would steal every reason people had for stopping by the old town. What was once a prosperous, vibrant community had been relegated to a siding alongside the main artery that linked the major towns and cities. It was a sad story that was often repeated across the country.
There were no “golden arches”, no In and Out, none of the large branded outlets or fashionable shopping malls. Those would be further west.
He saw the township proper ahead as he eased off the gas.
It was set out in a typical grid pattern with the old highway forming the main street that bisected the town, before continuing west and heading back out onto the open road.
He drove into the main street and spotted a café, filing its location away in his memory.
Stores lined each side. There was a tire and mechanical, a Dollar Store, a drug store, a small neighborhood food store and a smattering of shops that had closed down. The façade of the main street look tired and faded, like distant memories pressed into the cardboard pages of an old photo album. Time and progress had moved on, but Martha’s End had refused to follow, preferring to maintain its quaint rural feel like so many other small towns. But Martha’s End was still real, with real people, with old fashion values, proud of their heritage, where everyone knew everyone on a first name basis and where one could still feel safe walking the streets at night.
The hardware store was located at the end of the main street and Shaw turned into the dirt parking lot. There were a few other vehicles parked there and he checked them off. Old habits.
The front of the store was a wall of ladders, wheelbarrows, pallets of fertilizer and an assortment of hand tools. Shaw pushed open the door and a brass bell rang above his head. He smiled and stepped back in time. The air smelt of raw timber, wood oil and wax. The floor had seen a million feet across over the years, the original stain worn back to a dirty olive smear. There was a long counter along one side of the store, and behind this was a tall wall with built-in pigeon holes crammed full of small tools, parts, cardboard cartons, small boxes and hardware brick-a-brack, all neatly and carefully stacked. A ladder on a slant ran along a rail halfway up the wall to gain access to the top where larger boxes were stacked, the print on the sides faded and their cardboard sagging with age. Every conceivable space taken, brimming with bits and pieces of hardware.
It was obvious that Daisy’s father over the years had spent a lot of time in this exact store and judging from what Shaw had seen in the barn, Stan McAlister had almost single handedly kept this hardware business afloat as its biggest customer over the years.
“Morning.” An old man with thin hair and thick glasses shuffled out from a storeroom at the back. He wore an old fashioned woodworking apron, checked shirt and looked like he had been born in saw-dust.
Shaw unfolded a piece of paper and gave it to the old man. “I’m here to pick up a new pump for the McAlister Ranch,” he said.
The old man squinted at Shaw, squinted at the order, then back at Shaw. His eyes behind the thick glasses registered an unfamiliar face, but he smiled.
“No problem. It's out back, I’ll grab it for you.” He returned to the storeroom and emerged moments later wheeling a box bound with plastic ties on a trolley. The side was stamped with the stars and stripes in red and blue, and the words Made in the USA.
“Took a while to source one of these. Not cheap either,” the old man said, as he parked the box on the ground at Shaw’s feet. “In fact, the previous model it’s replacing went out of production back in the sixties,” the old man crooned. “Ain’t been no need. That’s how good they are.”
Says it all, Shaw thought, pleased that Daisy McAlister was staying true while everything around her was being sent offshore. The world had become such a disposable society.
“Not many companies make ’em like this. I told Daisy, but she insisted that she wanted something made here.”
The more Shaw learned about Daisy McAlister, the more he liked her.
The old man rang up the sale on a huge cash register that looked as old as him. The numbers popped up on plastic strips in a narrow glass window. No LED digits or electronic sounds.
“It’s on account. We’ll send a statement at the end of the month.”
Shaw knew “send” meant mail not email, and smiled again.
“But the account is quite overdue,” the old man said, raising an eyebrow at Shaw.
“How much is the balance?” he asked.
Shaw carried the box outside and secured it in the flat-bed of the Dodge with some rope. He started the truck and drove out of the parking lot, heading back along the main street looking for the café he had seen before, his fingers drumming on the wheel to the radio tuned to a local music station. You could never have enough coffee.
11
The café was located along a strip of stores on Main Street, sandwiched between the small office of a rural insurance broker and a womens hair salon that displayed in the window faded hairstyle posters from the seventies. Shaw parked the Dodge into a space in front. Any other place he would be worried someone would lift the pump out of the back of the Dodge and steal it. But for some reason the town didn’t have that feel to it.
The café had a cozy and relaxed vibe, and the smell of coffee beans was enticing to Shaw. He ordered at the counter and took a seat on a high stool along a bench by the front window so he could keep an eye on the Dodge and the passing traffic.
His coffee arrived and he took a sip, watching the cars and towns folk pass by as they went about their business. People stopped to talk to one another, share some news, a smile, a wave. Different to Kansas City. Community. No “street zombies” walking in a trance, heads down, eyes and thumbs glued to smartphones, oblivious to the world unfolding around them. This was the preoccupation of most people in the larger towns or cities and it annoyed Shaw when he saw it. The folk of Martha’s End seemed more friendly.
Everyone looked plain, unrecognizable.
All except one.
Across the street he saw Callie. She spotted the Dodge parked outside the café then looked up and saw Shaw sitting in the window. Instantly a smile spread across her face.
She came in and sat down beside him. “Fancy seeing you in town,” she said. “I saw the Dodge and I thought it was Daisy who had driven in.” She moved closer to Shaw and touched his arm. She looked different out of her work uniform, more relaxed. She wore straight jeans and a long sleeve T-shirt. Her hair was down and it fell around her shoulders. She looked even prettier dressed casually.
Shaw smiled. “I just came in to pick up a new pump for the ranch. I thought I’d stop by and grab a coffee before I headed back.” He angled his body towards her. She smelt good too, fresh like the beach. Shaw ordered her an iced tea and they sat together in a relaxed fashion.
“I’m so glad you took my advice, helping Daisy out around the ranch. I know she really needs any help she can get,” Callie said, twirling ice cubes with her straw.
“So tell me about Martha’s End,” Shaw asked, looking at her deep brown eyes and long lashes. They were dangerous eyes, eyes that a man could get lost in and forget his own name.
“Well, what would you like to know,” she replied, taking a sip of her tea, running her tongue slowly and deliberately over her bottom lip.
“Let’s start with the name ‘Martha’s End’, where did the town get its name from?”
Callie gave a mischievous grin. “That’s ea
sy. It was named after the woman who opened the first brothel here back around eighteen-seventy. The town of Hays was a pretty wild place back then. Plenty of drinking places almost like the wild west. Old Martha came in to Hays one day to set up her own establishment. The local madams took offence at the new competition, so they banded together and drove her out of town. She headed a few miles east, away from Hays and set up here. It just became known as Martha’s End.”
“How do you know all this?” Shaw asked, fascinated by the backstory of old towns and the odd names they had.
Callie shrugged. “Just the local archives. I’m a local. Was born here. Went to school here. My parents are both dead, but I stayed. Daisy grew up here too. We were best friends in high school.”
“Were?” Shaw asked.
“We still are, but she’s on the ranch and I don’t see her as much these days. A lot happened when her father died. There was no one else to help. She had bigger plans. She wanted to move to the city. Then her father died and she couldn’t leave. She’s an only child and it’s just her and her mother now running the whole place. At first she was overwhelmed. We talked a lot back then and she cried a lot at first, but then she grew stronger. She toughened up. She had to.”
“So why didn’t you leave? Go to a bigger city, see other places. Move to Hays or someplace bigger?”
The smile left her eyes for a moment as regrets came to the surface. Shaw could see she was wrestling with her emotions. She had spent her whole life in a small town and she felt trapped. When you were born and grew up in a small town, it’s hard to leave and the prospects of ever leaving evaporate over time.
Callie looked out the window. Cars slid slowly up and down the main street and people walked by, a constant passing of time and age. She spoke without looking back to Shaw. “I don’t know. I guess I feel safe here. I know everyone and everyone knows me. I’ve been into Kansas City and I just didn’t like it. I’m a small town girl.”
Truth was Callie didn’t have the courage to leave. She didn’t want to be alone, in a new town or city, and a stranger amongst strangers. For all her outward confidence and street-smarts she was still insecure.
She turned back to Shaw and her face brightened. “What about you? Tell me about yourself.” She wanted to change the subject.
She moved the stool closer, their knees touching. Shaw could see a gleam of excitement return to her eyes, like he had some juicy bit of gossip that she wanted to extract out of him. But in reality it was just the thrill of a new person in town, someone from the outside, an unfamiliar face amongst a sea of sameness. Shaw was a brief distraction from the daily drudgery and routine that was her small-town life.
“I’m just passing through,” he replied, non-committal. “I’m heading to Denver. I was in Kansas City.”
“So you’re from Kansas City?”
“No, I was in Kansas City.”
“So where are you from? Where’s your home town? Where were you born?” The questions came thick and fast like a volley of shots and she was getting agitated with the ducking and weaving by Shaw. He wasn’t forthcoming. Maybe he was shy. Maybe he was deeply private.
Callie pulled back, correcting herself. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s none of my business.”
Shaw looked at her for a moment. He couldn’t tell her everything, but she seemed eager and in a way he felt sorry for her. He didn’t mean it in a disrespectful way. He just did. She was like a puppy wanting you to throw it a ball and was confused when you didn’t.
Callie looked at her hands in her lap, fully aware of the awkwardness of the sudden silence.
“I’m from Indiana. A city called Terra Haute. I went to University of Maryland, but I dropped out after one semester. I’m thirty years old and I have an older sister. She is in law enforcement in Virginia. We don’t really talk much or keep in touch. Both my parents are dead. I worked in Washington for a while up until last year.”
“Are you a cop?” she asked, with a look of surprise.
“No, I’m not a cop, my sister is. She gets to carry a gun.” Shaw did too, but in another capacity.
Callie paused a beat, her brain trying to process the sudden flood of information, trying to cross-reference it to the man who sat in front of her, the man she liked the look of the moment he walked into the diner, and liked even more from what small snippets of information he just divulged.
“Are you married?” Callie asked. Not that it had ever stopped her in the past.
“Do I look married?” Shaw cocked his head.
Callie narrowed her eyes, thinking as she studied him. “No. You look troubled.”
“Troubled?” he laughed. Callie liked it when he laughed. His smile made her tingle in all the right places. It took him to a whole new level in her books. It was a rich, deep and throaty laugh, confident, self assured and mature. But he still looked troubled, preoccupied. He must have been, because he hadn’t picked up on any of her clues. Most of the guys around here still lived at home and wouldn’t know what to do with a pretty woman if one stripped off and wrapped herself in nothing but a Christmas bow and lay provocatively under the tree on Christmas Eve—while his wife and kids slept upstairs.
Callie thought back to last Christmas and grimaced on the inside. It was a stupid thing to do, but he said he loved her and was going to leave his family for her.
Shaw leaned forward when he didn’t get a response, “Callie?”
Callie snapped out of her trance, her mind a million miles away, reminiscing on the foolish act.
“Oh, sorry," she stuttered.
“That’s pretty much it. I’m taking some time off before I decide what to do next, see where the road will take me. But let me assure you, I’m not troubled. Far from it. I’m the most relaxed I’ve been in ages.”
“How long will you stay here, in Martha’s End?” Callie pressed forward, determined, her hand touched his knee.
“Just a few days. I just want to fix a few things around Daisy’s place.”
“Can I give you a reason to stay longer? Some things need fixing at my place too,” Callie replied. The offer hung there, plain as day, obvious.
Shaw looked down at her hand on his knee, then back to her eyes. There was a question there, behind the dilated pupils. She looked intoxicating with her small nose, a smattering of freckles, her lips parted slightly, a perfect row of white teeth, the tip of her tongue just visible. It was the freckles that did it for Shaw. They always did. An innocent look and infinite sex-appeal all rolled into one.
“Are you always this direct?” he raised an eyebrow. He watched as Callie’s finger made circles around his knee.
She slid her tongue back and forth across her upper teeth. “Only when I see something I like and when time is against me.”
Shaw reached for his coffee and took another sip. “Tell me about the Morgans. What do they do here in town? What are they like? Why do they want the McAlister land so badly?”
Callie sat back on her stool, a little taken back by the change of topic and the slight rejection. But she would persist, maybe later. “The Morgans are the Morgans. They and the McAlisters were among the first families to settle here back in the day. Their family history goes back more than a century.”
“How many of them are there? The brothers, I mean, or whoever lives on their ranch.”
“There are the three brothers and then there’s Morgan Senior, Jim Morgan. They’re a bunch of bullies, always have been. We all grew up together, went to school here, me, Daisy, Jed, Rory and Billy. Billy’s the eldest of the brothers, the other two just do what he tells them. They were bullies back then in school and they just grew into bigger bullies now.”
“What about the father, Jim?”
Callie nodded, cradling her glass of tea, rubbing the cold moisture up and down the side. “As they say, ‘the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ The three brothers are just younger versions of the father. They follow his lead and do his dirty work around town.
”
“Work?” Shaw asked.
“You hardly see Jim Morgan around town. He stays most of the time on the Morgan ranch, holed up in that huge house up there. It’s like a compound. Fences, security cameras, guard dogs, the whole nine yards. Just keep driving past the McAlister ranch, past the boundary fence for about another three miles and you’ll get to the start of the Morgan property. Can’t miss it.”
Fences, security cameras, guard dogs? This certainly got Shaw’s attention. Unusually high security measures for a rural setting, unless someone was protecting or hiding something significant.
Callie continued, “He gets his three sons to do his bidding around town. You know, debt collecting, rent collecting. You were in the diner when you saw them come in. Hal the chef is still fuming over it. When he gets behind in his rent the brothers come knocking. But it’s Jim Morgan who pulls all the strings around here. He makes himself out to be a business man and an upstanding member of the community, but he manipulates people around here.”
“You’re not working today at the diner?”
“No, it’s my day off, I’ve got Saturday and Sunday off. It’s a bummer, because the weekends are usually good for tips. More people come in, more locals and more out-of-towners. And I need the money. Hal still owes me a few weeks pay, but the Morgans cleared out the till yesterday.”
“What about the police?” Shaw knew the answer before he even asked the question. It was typical of a small town where one family flexed its money and influence over the locals.
Callie nearly choked on her tea. “The police?” she scoffed. “Hell, they’re in Jim Morgan’s pocket. We’ve got no police force here in Martha’s End. There’s a small department based in Hays and they usually come from there, if there’s trouble. It’s only a few miles away.”
