Currency of Souls

by Kealan Patrick Burke

  As I draw abreast of the old man, I see there’s only two pennies in his palm. I guess the fire took a little something extra from him. But when at last he raises his head, not only does he seem calm, he’s almost smiling. A thin thread of blue-gray smoke drifts from the small hole in the box in his throat. Opaque eyes settle on mine, and they look ancient.

  The smile.

  The pennies.

  It dawns on me then, the not-so-quick-witted Sheriff of a town on life support, that there was something to Reverend Hill’s threat after all. It was there right from the beginning. We were waiting for a great black winged demon to come bursting up from below, or the devil himself to come strolling in the door with a brimstone smile and eyes like glowing embers, all those peachy images the Good Book tells us we should be watching for, when we should have been looking at that ever-present patch of darkness in the corner. To the man counting his change.

  Fear overwhelms me, and my legs, which have done a respectable job of holding me up through the madness, finally give out. I stumble. Cadaver’s hand lashes out and clamps on my arm, somehow keeping me upright.

  “You all right, Sheriff?” he whispers, head cocked slightly in an admirable impression of genuine concern.

  From the fire comes a great hiss. It might be a serpent; it might just be the rain meeting flame. I’m not so certain of anything anymore. Only that Cadaver’s the reason the air smells like burning flesh.

  “’Just counting what’s left’,” I say, recalling his words to me before we left the bar. “You were talking about us.”

  He nods, glances back at Kyle, then steps closer. There should not be enough strength in his old bones to keep me from falling, but there is. His hand on my elbow might as well be a metal brace.

  “There’s no accountin’ for human emotion,” he says, his whisper tinged with sadness, aided by the expression of regret on his worn face. “Especially the love of a frustrated old woman for her shameless husband. Because of Eleanor Cobb, everythin’ went sideways on us. You were right. This shouldn’t’ve happened.”

  “But it did.”

  “Yes it did, and that’s a shame.” He closes his fist around the pennies. “If it means anythin’—and I don’t expect it will, at least not for a while—this isn’t what I wanted. They were my friends too.”

  I’m bitter, and scared, and more than ready for him to reach inside my tired body and wrench out my soul, whatever’s left of it. “Am I supposed to believe that? Or is it just customary where you come from to burn your friends alive if things don’t go according to plan?”

  He purses his lips, then squints at me like a short-sighted man trying to read the fine print on a legal document. “The Reverend got what was comin’ to him. They all did, unfortunate as it is. Wintry…” He shook his head, a wry smile on his wrinkled lips. “He can talk you know. He just chose not to after— ”

  “I don’t want a litany of their sins,” I interrupt. “It hardly makes a damn bit of difference now. All I want to know from you is what happens to Kyle.”

  He nods his understanding. Anyone looking might think we were discussing the latest decisions of the coaches of our favorite football teams. “Repentance is the name of this game, Tom. Don’t matter whether I influence it or not, or whether you both live to be a hundred and ten or die tomorrow, the debt’s got to be settled. It’s the price you have to pay for makin’ the wrong choice when both were available to you.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  He sighs. “I’m a reasonable man, Tom.”

  I can’t help myself. I laugh long and loud at that little nugget of absurdity. The contradiction to Cadaver’s claim is burning high and bright before us. Sure, he didn’t strike the match, but if not for his influence, none of us would have been there to begin with.

  He releases his grip on me. I don’t fall, but there’s not a whole lot of strength left in me. I stay standing only so I can look him in the eye when he tells me what’s going to become of my son. And maybe when he does I’ll have just the right amount of energy left to punch his fucking face in.

  But he doesn’t answer right away. Instead he grabs my left hand, forces it out of the fist that I’ve made to follow up on my unvoiced threat, and drops his two pennies into my palm.

  I look up at him.

  His eyes probe mine, and my guts squirm as if a surgeon has put his cold fingers in there. I’m afraid I’m going to be sick. “Consider it a loan,” he says, and closes my fingers around the coins.

  “Why?” I ask, as he starts to walk toward the burning building, the smoke whipping itself into specters that chase each other around the flames. Sparks dance like giddy stars.

  At the threshold to the inferno that used to be Eddie’s Bar, he stops, seemingly unaffected by anything but the light from the blaze. He squints back over his shoulder at me, and though his voice is still a whisper, I hear it as surely as if he’s said it right into my ear.

  “It’s all I have.”

  Chapter Seven

  Eddie’s is still burning bright by the time we snap out of whatever cocktail of grief and shock and confusion has held us there like moths, and I give up waiting for Cadaver to come back out and explain just what it is that’s making two cold spots in the palm of my right hand. Whatever he is, he’s right where he belongs, but that doesn’t make me feel much better. I thought for sure that Hill’s death meant it was all over, that at last the shackles had been removed and we were free to move on, if we could ever figure out a way to do it without taking the guilt and ghosts with us.

  But nothing’s over. There won’t be any new chapters here. And Eddie’s might just as well be standing untouched by fire because after this, even though the numbers are lower, Milestone’s purgatory is still going to house a few folks pretending to live their lives while they wait for someone to come collect a debt they’re never going to be able to repay. Only difference is next time the debt collector won’t be a cocky bible-thumping Reverend with dyed hair, but a skeletal man with an electronic doodad where his larynx should be.

  Kyle’s still watching the fire with tear-filled eyes, and I don’t have a goddamn clue what I’m supposed to do next, but because I need to move, I have a quick word with Kyle, watch him head for my truck, then I make my way over to the shadows, where I can hear Brody hacking and coughing as he stumbles away from the burning building.

  “You’re alive.” The announcement is my way of letting him know he’s not the only one, in case he was wondering. His face, clear of the shadows and lit by the flames, is streaked with soot, his eyes narrowed as his lungs convulse and force another phlegmy cough from him. The nice suit is officially beyond saving.

  “Yeah, no thanks to you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You left me with that crazy man, didn’t you? The healer? Executioner, more like.”

  I reach down, slip an arm underneath his elbow and yank him up. “You’re looking a damn sight better than when I left you. He did something for you or you wouldn’t be standing here.” I inspect the front of his shirt. The bullet hole is still there, but I can’t tell if there’s one in the flesh beneath it to match.

  “I owe that to the big black dude.”

  “Wintry?”

  “Guy threw me right through the fucking window after your naked friend went nuclear.”

  “Nuclear, how?”

  He takes a few unsteady steps, and leans against the wooden fence. “The guy put his hands on me. Cobb did. And yeah, he fixed me up just like he said he would, but then…” He shakes his head, a humorless smile on his grimy face. “Then he starts bawling and whatever invisible shit’s pouring from his hands into me turns to fire. I tell you, I’ve been around—don’t be fooled by my age, I’ve seen plenty—but I’ve never seen nothing like that before. Blue fire, man, streaming like piss from his fingers. I don’t think even he expected it, but he just went right on bawling about his wife, about how he wasn’t going to let her go, then he raises those h
ands so the streams are about an inch from the top of my head—Christ, it was like looking up at an electric fence—and POW!, he cooks the hot chick right where she’s standing.”

  “Flo?”

  “Yeah, the one looks a bit like Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. Hell of a waste. So she drops, and that sets the big guy off. He grabs a handful of my shirt, the world starts spinning and next thing I know I’m doing a swan dive through the goddamn window.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “Don’t know for sure. Didn’t see it; but it isn’t that hard to figure out, is it? Guy grieving for his wife finds his hands have turned into flamethrowers. Three seconds later the whole place goes up in smoke. Looks like your friend had himself a barbecue.”

  Kyle finds us and with a grim look at Brody, hands me the set of handcuffs I keep in my glove box. Can’t remember the last time I had call to use these. Brody straightens a little. “What are those for?”

  “You’re lucky to be alive, boy. You shouldn’t be, and that’s a fact. But you’re a murderer, and that’s a fact too, so you’re going to cool your heels in my jail for a while until I decide what to do with you.”

  He stiffens, takes a step back, and I’m suddenly more aware than ever that I don’t have a gun.

  Kyle does though. “Stay where you are,” he says, weapon trained on Brody.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. After all the shit I just went through, you’re going to stick me in a cell?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “You don’t have proof to say I did anything.”

  “I’ve got you threatening a police officer, and that’s enough for now.”

  “Aw that’s bullshit. Besides, my gun is in there,” he says, jerking a thumb at the burning tavern. “Without that, you haven’t got squat.”

  “Your girl didn’t make it,” Kyle says then. The guy’s expression falters, but only for a moment, like a breeze across a calm pond. “Yeah, I figured that. Thanks for breaking it to me gently, though, you asshole.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Naked old guy with flamethrower hands, fruitcake holymen…and a hick Sheriff and his trigger-happy boy trying to railroad me. I mean, for Chrissakes…where the hell am I anyway?”

  “Milestone.” I motion for him to start moving. And Hell isn’t a million miles off the mark either.

  * * *

  We put Brody, cuffed, in the truck. He doesn’t resist, but I can tell by the tension in his muscles that he’d like to. “This is a crock of shit.” His grumbling lasts only until Kyle and me start unloading the girl from the truck bed. “What are you doing?” he asks then, his voice muffled. “Where are you taking her?”

  “She needs burying,” I call back, and ignore whatever else he says. He probably thinks being her lover gives him some right to dictate what happens to her in death, and ordinarily I’d agree. Fact is, though, this isn’t an ordinary situation. Fact is, she’s dead because he was going too fast, hightailing it along dark twisty roads probably looking for somewhere to rob. Doesn’t matter how he felt about her in life. For her, life’s over, and he drove the hearse. So fuck him and his sense of entitlement. We’re planting her.

  * * *

  Kyle stands and draws the back of his hand across his eyes, carving clear furrows in the dust and soot. He glances at me for a moment, then shakes his head. I can’t figure out if the gesture is more disdain for me or regret for the tragedy that’s befallen our friends. Guess it doesn’t matter now. I get back to work clearing the debris from my own head. After all, we’re standing over a dead girl, about to put her in a hole far from home where no one will ever know she’s planted and won’t be able to visit her if they care to. But I’m guessing she was just as lost as the company she kept in her final hours, and probably won’t raise a fuss about where I lay her bones, and no one else will either. No milk carton appearances for this one, just an unceremonious burial out back of a burning tavern.

  I turn away from the flames and it’s like walking from night to day. Raging light and heat behind me, cold rain and darkness ahead. A few feet away, Kyle’s watching.

  “You got a shovel?” he asks.

  “No. Why don’t you take that piece of yours and shoot some earth loose for me?”

  “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You need me to explain it to you?”

  His face contorts with rage. “Hey, I saved your fucking ass in there.”

  “That so.”

  “Yeah it goddamn well is so.” He moves to stand close, in my face, his eyes black fire. “I saved everyone in there. I stopped that guy from killing Wintry, and God knows who else. I stopped the Reverend from sending us all out on our little death drives. Permanently. So what the hell’s your problem?”

  “You saved us?”

  “Damn right I did. No one else had the guts to do it.”

  “That what you think?”

  A step closer. “We’re standing here aren’t we?”

  “We are, yeah.”

  He doesn’t answer, just stares until I can’t meet it anymore.I hunker down to the girl. She smells of sweat, or maybe that’s me, but there’s no question where the faint trace of perfume is coming from. The feeling I had earlier about the girl weighing less is gone now and my arms and legs quiver as I carry her up the slope. I figure it’s because I’m exhausted. All the fight has left me, along with everything else.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Kyle asks, looking back toward the truck.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “I could take him back.”

  “If it’s all the same, I’d feel a lot better taking him in.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  I look up at him and shrug. “You just killed a man, Kyle. I bet you’re even wondering if you’ve got the nerve to kill me, so no, I don’t trust you. In fact, I’d rather set that guy free than let you take him in.”

  “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

  “Yeah well…doesn’t change the color of that bullseye on my back, now does it?”

  “Fuck you.” He stands there for another moment, a black ghost with the flames of hell behind him, then he turns and walks away. I watch him go, waiting for him to lunge toward my truck and the unsuspecting guy handcuffed in back of it, because as little as I’ve known about this son of mine, I know even less about the one with the cold look in his eyes and the big goddamn gun in his hand, so I’m watching, waiting to see what he’ll do next.

  But he doesn’t go to my truck. He goes to his Chevy, and doesn’t look back. The car’s lights make gray funnels in the smoke as he reverses out of the lot and back down the hill.

  I’m left to ponder the irony of protecting a murderer from my son when I was all too willing to leave the guy in Cobb’s care. Could be I trusted Cobb when I had no right to. Could be not letting Kyle take the guy in was my way of protecting, not Brody, but my son, keeping him out of further trouble. Yeah, sure.

  With a sigh, I circle the fire as close as it will let me get without burning the hair out of my ears. There’s a plot of land back here where no one should rightly be put to rest. It’s stony ground and hard, and its closeness to a tavern should disqualify it if the fact that its unconsecrated doesn’t. And when the toilets quit working, as they often did in Eddie’s, people pissed out here. That’s the smell I’m getting now, despite the rain and the smoke, because the smell of piss is stubborn like that. It’ll hang around, get stronger, no matter what you try and do to get rid of it.

  Here’s where the whore’s going to get planted, in rocky unblessed earth that smells like the men’s room.

  The fire’s close. If I stood up right now, turned and took a dozen strides I’d be right on the edge of it feeling what little hair I have left shrivel up. It dries my back as I lay the girl down and set about finding a rock with enough of a point to work as a tool. I’d use my hands but it would take me until this time
tomorrow to get it deep enough that the coyotes and other scavengers would let her be. Takes me a minute, but I find what I’m looking for. It’s a spade-shaped rock half-buried in the wormy earth, and though it takes some persuading, I eventually get it free and start hacking at the earth.

  Nothing here to say it’s a graveyard. No markers, no lumps in the ground where the dead have pulled the covers up over themselves, and no flowers. There’s a reason for that. Anyone planted here isn’t meant to be mourned, and so far they haven’t been disappointed. Looks like a damn vegetable patch that’s been let go to seed, but under all that stone and dirt and weeds, there are a number of folks I used to know and don’t miss. Among them is ’ol Eddie, a rat-bastard of the highest order and, I’m guessing, another reason this patch of ground reeks of piss.

  You’re a real asshole, you know that?

  Kyle’s got a girl. She’s not much, but she’s company. Used to be she ran a pretty good store out of one of the old buildings on Winter Street, selling clothes and trinkets and such. But in Milestone, the days of prosperous business for all but bartenders, undertakers and whores has ended, and Iris Gale knows that well, which is why she’s now self-employed in the latter trade. I figure she doesn’t charge Kyle for her services, on account of how he’s got no money, or at least none that I know about outside of the odd jobs he does for those willing to open their doors to him. Maybe that’s why he was so concerned about Carla. Maybe Iris has changed his opinion on whores and the like.

  Doesn’t matter.

  He’s gone, and now it’s just the dead girl and me with her boyfriend sulking in the passenger seat of my truck.

  Or maybe not, because all of a sudden the back of my neck’s cold and that’s not right at all, not with the fire still fighting its blazing fight against the wind and rain. Someone’s watching me. I’m sure of it, and I cast a quick glance at the whore before standing, both knees crackling loud enough to make me wince. “I’ll get you there in a minute,” I let her know by way of an apology. “Just hang on.” That damn spied-on feeling grows stronger, until it makes my skin crawl. I have to wonder if it’s the rain after all. Maybe it’s just gotten colder. Maybe the fire’s finally admitting defeat. Maybe Brody’s throwing daggers at me from my truck. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It’s all bullshit. My way of trying to pretend I’ve gone through all I’m going to for one night.