Your Resting Place

Book 3: The Walkin'

by David Towsey

Genres: Fantasy; Science Fiction

Synopsis

Perfect for fans of The Walking Dead and The Road: the stunning, terrifying, moving conclusion to The Walkin'' Trilogy.

Is there a future for those already dead?

Rumours of the Drowned Woman are rife. Some say she can''t be killed, not in the usual ways. She hunts down wanted men - but never collects on the bounty; they say she is looking for one man in particular. He killed her husband and stole her daughter.

There will be a reckoning.

''Haunting, elegiac, evocative and human'' Christopher Brookmyre, author of Dead Girl Walking

Release date: November 5, 2015

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 304

Sample

Prologue

Walter had five bodies on the bed of his wagon. Judging by the clean holes through their heads, they’d stay that way. He liked that: one less thing to worry about. They weren’t bleeding much, either. The boards of his wagon were stained plenty already; the rusty smell was a constant, as were the specks. But it was important to keep the bed clean. He had a reputation to think of.

He waited on the edge of Pine Ridge until dawn, and then waited some more. Law-Man Miller was not an early riser. Walter couldn’t fault him for that – Pine’s trouble kept late hours. He licked his lips at the memory of whiskey and took a slug from his water-skin, then grimaced; he didn’t have the imagination to fool his mouth. Collect from the Law-Man first, then see to Patches and the wagon, and then a soft bed and a soft body. He rubbed the base of his back. He’d earned a little respite. He glanced at the bodies in the wagon. A canvas sheet covered all but their feet.

‘I too have earned it!’

They stayed silent.

He rubbed his nose and was shocked at the chill of his finger. He’d waited long enough. The first flick of the reins had no effect. He leaned over to find Patches asleep. The shaggie’s talent for sleeping standing up rankled him and he slapped the reins harder. He was pleased with the resulting snort as Patches lurched forward, the wheels creaking their own protest. They were all idle – he was the only one in this outfit who understood hard work. As he rolled into Pine Ridge, he figured he might be the only one in the whole county.

The streets were empty: not just the main thoroughfare, but the side streets and alleyways. He was relieved to see a mouser scratching at the side of a tanner’s shop – he was starting to worry that this was a dream. Dreaming of coming to town with a full wagon wasn’t new to Walter, and it was after those dreams that he generally thought seriously about his line of work. He waved to the mouser. Its contempt was real.

He pulled up outside the Law-Man’s building, one of the smaller places on the thoroughfare. It was just a single storey; the windows were barred and the door was reinforced with heavy studs. He eased himself down from the seat, his cold joints popping with the first few steps, and knocked on the door with the side of his hand, hitting one of the studs. He cursed under his breath.

‘He’s not in yet.’

The face at the window had a rough red beard with plenty of knots and what looked like bits of food tangled in the hair. That and his nose were all that poked through the bars.

‘Many of you in there?’ Walter said.

‘Just me and two old-timers. If they’re still breathing.’

‘Will you shut it?’ a voice came from inside.

‘Drink, was it?’ Walter said.

‘Don’t remember. S’ppose he’ll tell me.’

Walter sat down on the narrow porch, shifting until his back was comfortable against the wall. Miller shouldn’t be too late if last night’s duties were limited to three scruffy drunks.

‘Full load, I see,’ the bearded man said.

‘For once.’

‘What’d they do this time?’

‘Does it matter?’ Walter said.

‘Don’t you wonder?’

‘I just collect. The things I wonder about happen after that.’

The man spat through the bars. ‘Bet you don’t even find out their names, do you?’

Walter noticed a streak of dried mud on his boot. He took out his pistol and scraped away the flakes.

‘Do you?’ the man shouted.

‘Quit your noise, Robson,’ someone said, and Walter looked up to see Law-Man Miller coming round the corner of the building. His deputy, a large lad with small eyes, followed close behind.

Miller tipped his hat when he saw Walter. ‘Morning,’ he said.

‘So it is.’ Walter stood with some difficulty.

Miller made no offer to help. ‘Full wagon today.’

‘That’s what I said,’ Robson squawked.

Walter led the Law-Man and his deputy to the back of the wagon. He pulled back the sheet with a little flourish. Five dead men, eight pistols still in their holsters. Five hats. Ten boots. One or two pockets bulged with who-knew-what. Walter made sure their possessions were easy to see; he wasn’t a thief.

‘Recognise them?’ he said.

‘Do you?’

Walter laughed awkwardly, unsure if Miller was joking. ‘’Course I do – every one’s on a poster.’ He pointed towards the Law-Man’s office and the wall that was papered with faces.

The deputy – Lacey or Macey, something like that – went to the side of the wagon and lifted one man’s hat to get a better look.

‘You working alone these days?’ Miller said.

‘Henry’s off planting crops.’

‘And these – all the same gang?’

Walter spread his hands. ‘Who can tell, with all their comings and goings?’

‘All clean shots,’ Macey said – it was definitely Macey. ‘One here, one here.’ He pointed at his head and then his heart.

Miller glanced up and down the street. ‘You’d best come in. Put the bodies in the back, Deputy.’

Macey set to, ignoring the jibes of the bearded prisoner.

Inside the office, Miller put his hat on his desk. ‘Sit,’ he said.

Walter did as he was told, and Miller put his hands on the desk, palms down, and leaned forward. Walter noticed his greying ponytail was tied tight back today.

‘You can stop pissing up my wall now, Walter.’

‘Wh—?’

‘As in: I know how small the cock is, despite the display. That’s not your work out there.’

‘I don’t follow,’ he said.

‘Yes, you do. You’ve brought in bodies before with more lead in them than bone.’ He turned to the wall of posters, examined them for a moment, then yanked five from their pins. ‘And now you bring me half a gang threaded as neatly as needles.’

‘Well, there’s no need—’

‘Walter, if these posters are right, this isn’t just a bunch of roughs. You’re talking about guns who ride with the Pastor’s boy.’

He sighed. ‘Does it really matter? They’re here . . .’

‘That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about who isn’t here, who isn’t sitting in that chair claiming their bounties.’

‘You know already though, don’t you?’ he said.

‘I could take a guess.’

‘Is it my fault she don’t bring in the bodies?’

Deputy Macey came into the office, his smile so big his eyes were lost completely amongst the wrinkles. ‘They say she can’t be killed. Not like Walkin’ normally can, anyhows,’ he said.

Walter had to shift bodily in his chair to confront the deputy. ‘And how do you know who we’re talking on?’

‘Oh, Deputy Macey has made her a special project,’ Miller said.

‘They say it’s because she drowned: so burning her would be like trying to set fire to a wet log.’

Walter shook his head. ‘Are you hearing this?’ he said to Miller.

‘The Drowned Woman – that’s what they’re calling her.’

‘I don’t care what she’s called, even if it is as stupid a name as that. If she don’t want the bounties, then I do.’

‘She just leaves the bodies there, out in the sun, ready for the blightbirds?’ Miller said.

Macey came over to him and stood real close. ‘Have you seen her?’

‘From afar,’ Walter said, undoing the top button of his shirt. ‘And yes, she leaves ’em where they fall.’

‘You’re not there when it happens?’ Miller said.

‘No.’

‘You don’t chase her off?’

‘Are you serious?’ Walter said.

‘I need to hear you say it.’

‘No. I just cart ’em to town, is all.’

‘Picking over the bones,’ Miller said.

‘I’m not getting any younger.’

‘Come on then.’ The Law-Man picked up his hat. ‘Let’s make sure it’s them.’

Macey led the way. He had laid out the bodies under an overhanging roof. Walter dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief and then kept it pressed to his face, to mask the too-sweet smell of rot. Funny he’d not noticed it in the wagon.

Law-Man Miller looked at his first piece of paper, then dropped the poster on the chest of one of the men. The resemblance was clear as day. The number at the bottom would buy a drink and some company. Times that by five and it would be a good week. Or a bearable month.

Miller paused at the final body. ‘Deputy, you know little Billy Crawford, lives on Upper Lane?’ he said.

‘My second cousin, Martha, she learns her letters with Billy.’

‘Would you fetch him?’

As Macey hustled between the houses and was soon lost to sight, Walter asked, ‘Problem, Law-Man?’

‘This here is Arthur Crawford, Billy’s pa.’

‘Oh.’ Walter peered at the slack, clean-shaven face. ‘Wouldn’t Mrs Crawford want to know too?’

‘No, I don’t reckon she would.’

As they waited in silence for the deputy, Walter edged away from the bodies as much as he could without making it obvious. He couldn’t settle on whether it was better to breathe in through the nose or the mouth – more years than he could remember in the job and there was still no getting used to that smell.

Macey returned holding the hand of a skinny, dark-haired boy. Billy was wide-eyed, and Walter could see he was shaking a little.

The Law-Man said, ‘You’re not in trouble, Billy.’

The boy, so young he couldn’t have been into double figures, almost collapsed in relief. When he smiled he was missing most of his teeth – but no one else was smiling and he soon stopped.

‘Come here, boy. I want you to see this,’ Miller said. The Law-Man put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘This is your pa, Billy.’

The boy stared dumbly at the body. Macey had closed the eyes, though there was still the matter of the hole in the head. Walter wished he were back at the wagon or, even better, in the saloon – this boy’s grief was none of his business – but there weren’t any tears. Billy stood there until the deputy came and led him away. The boy didn’t even look back.

Walter whistled through his teeth. ‘That’s left me cold.’

‘How so?’

‘I hope someone weeps when I go.’

‘Don’t lose sleep over it,’ the Law-Man said. ‘Billy never met his pa.’

1 : 1

The summer sun was hotter than a cornered mouser. Ryan pulled his straw hat down till it almost covered his eyes, though the sun still went on through to most of his neck and shoulders; dead-lies and the seasons had eaten away at it. He chewed on a hay stalk like he’d seen the men do.

Stepping onto the lowest beam of the fence, he looked out across their one field. The hay was getting tall, and no amount of looking would get the harvest done; the army man was late. Crops were being worked all along the low hills. The McGraw fields were already on their second cut. He bounced on the beam, half hoping it would break.

He turned his back on one mess only to face another. Their house squatted at the top of a long slope leading down to the road. Between the road and the house was an old corral that hadn’t seen use in years, and a chook house with half the chooks already dead and eaten. They had sold the neats two summers back; fat Simmons, with his sweaty hands and busy eyes, taking pity and paying for what he could’ve stole.

Ryan headed over to the well, kicking any stones in reach. They rattled across the dry dirt. One hit the back wall of the house and he waited for a shriek, but it didn’t come. It wasn’t long past noon; she’d still be drunk. At the well he lowered the bucket, rattling it all the way down. It might remind her of what went on outside and piss on her morning.

Despite his racket, today was too peaceful for that. Even the chooks didn’t start a fuss when he took them the water. The heat might have slowed their senses, still, he didn’t take any chances: they were a malicious bunch. Chooks and mothers were created under the same bad moon – they made soothing sounds, all right, but there was evil in every eye and their claws were knife-sharp. The sickly warm smell of chook shit, old and new, made Ryan gag. He filled up their water bowl with one hand over his nose.

They would need feeding later, a few handfuls of seed from the bag that sagged against the house. It was half seed, half wheatle now, but the chooks weren’t worried. Loveless, demon-eyed chooks. He kicked a stone at their house and even that raised nothing more than a warble from them.

‘Ryan!’ his ma screamed. She was standing in the doorway glaring out at the world. ‘What are you doing out here?’ She leaned hard on the frame. She was wearing nothing but a nightdress: a string of bones topped by lank black curls.

‘Morning, Ma.’

‘Don’t you sass me. Where’s the—?’ She belched and spat onto the porch. ‘Where’s my eggs?’

‘I’ll see to them d’rectly, Ma.’

‘Well then. Don’t go waiting for them to hatch, eh?’ She stumbled back into the house.

He took the bucket back to the well. Taking off his hat, he scratched the sore on his head. It was dry today. He checked over the field again. Them soldiers had better come soon or he’d have to watch it all rot, as useless as a bucket full of holes. He took two logs from the woodpile, which left a big empty space where the pile should’ve been. There weren’t any trees worth chopping down on the McDermott farm. At least he now had a reason to be away from the house that night; sometimes his ma thought that was important when she had company; other times she didn’t seem to care. First he’d steal the axe and then steal the wood – or maybe just steal the wood, depending on where McGraw chained up his rufts.

‘I told you not to move that damn chair,’ Ma yelled. She could’ve been bawling right in his ear, the gaps those walls had. There was a crash, likely the chair hitting the table. Even drunk, she had a wiry strength.

Hefting a log in each hand, just in case, he went round to the front of the house and peered in. Ma was sitting, arms crossed, at the small table, which had been shoved up against the wall. The other chair was lying on the floor. One leg was missing.

‘That’ll need fixing,’ she said. She must have eaten the leg; it was nowhere he could see.

The bedroom door was shut. There were marks on the floor where he’d dragged his pallet out. He remembered kicking at it, just to see the dust cloud up – did he move it last night, or was it the night before? Either way, he’d slept by the cooking fire that he’d managed to keep going on hope and ashes, warmed by the embers, trying not to hear. When he needed to, he went and did his business outside, at the far end of the field, then walked back slowly. His ma wasn’t so picky.

He’d swept the floor that morning whilst she was sleeping, but now he was bringing it all back in. There was black stuff between the floorboards; who knew what that was? He opened the stove and shoved one of the logs in.

His ma was drumming her fingers on the table. He washed his hands in the bucket while the pan heated up.

‘There any bread?’ his ma said.

It was four days old, and mould covered half of it. He hacked off the bad bits, then cut the rest into slices that hissed as he dropped them into the pan.

‘I don’t want it cooked,’ she said.

‘You don’t want it like rock neither.’

He had broken one of the yokes as he’d dropped them into the pan; he put that egg on his plate.

‘You eat like a mouse – look at you, all elbows and wrists.’ She seized his arm with one of her claws. Her nails were bitten to the quick. ‘I am cursed with weak men.’

He’d given her three eggs, taken just one for himself.

*

Ryan wasted the afternoon hours in the shade behind the house, throwing stones and watching any critter that moved, while his ma sobered up. She found him there as the sun started to get red, all colours of angry. She’d had a wash and her cheeks had a little colour. She’d changed into a flowery cotton dress, not her best but it had only one hole, which she had patched over using cloth from an old red blouse so the patch looked like a faded bloodstain. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t glaring either.

‘We got washing to do,’ she said, and he got up and followed her into the house.

Ma came out of the bedroom with a bundle of sheets. The broken chair was leaning against the wall. Chances were she couldn’t remember lunch. He picked up the table, turned it sideways, and started for the back.

‘No, Ryan, put it in the sun.’

She was ready with the soap and a small pruning knife that had rusted near the handle. She shaved three slices of soap into the water and started scrubbing. His job was to drape the clean clothes over the fence. Left out overnight they would be icy-cold by morning, though mostly dry. Both of them knew this was a chore that should be done early, and they both knew why it wasn’t.

‘My ma used to make me wash my own clothes, all on my own,’ she said. ‘She was a hard woman – not soft on me, like I am on you.’

He knew better than to disagree. ‘Do you miss your ma?’

‘Of course.’ She wiped her brow. ‘We fought plenty, but she’s my mother.’

‘Will she ever come visit?’

‘Someone’s coming over tonight,’ Ma said eventually. ‘An important man.’

That meant his pallet stayed out. If he got back too early from thieving McGraw’s wood he’d have to stuff his head under a pillow if he was to get any sleep.

‘You’ll like him; he rides a big white courser. Deep pockets.’

He didn’t want to hear it.

He went to the fence and wrung out a pair of cotton trousers, the cloth straining in his fingers. His stomach was bile and his breath was hotter than coals.

He stood for a while, watching her as she fought with a sheet. She’d tied her hair back, but stray curls kept slipping out. Her face looked rounder and her skin warmer as she worked. Her arms were too skinny and the black marks under her eyes never went away, but maybe she was pretty.

She passed him the sheet. It still smelled of men and their business.

1 : 2

Night dropped slowly onto the hills around the house. The scrapers started their wasteful noise and Ryan was glad for it. He was sitting in front of the stove, making a show of looking after the fire. Ma was at the table. They were both waiting on the dark. She lit a tallow candle, its stink cloying beyond its little bubble of light. He put on his jacket. His skin was pale through the holes.

‘Where are you going?’

‘We need wood.’

She’d put on her rouge and done her lips, though she didn’t go as far as the women in Fort Davis. ‘You be careful,’ she said.

He stopped by the door and pulled on his wool hat. There was a box of nine or ten little bottles, all empty, waiting to be taken away. They clinked like a handful of coins as he slammed the door behind him.

*

The air was as clear as spring water and almost as cold. There wasn’t a cloud to block out the stars. He nearly turned back into the house, considering his chances against McGraw and his rufts pretty poor in such light. But they needed wood. He picked up the stick he favoured for walking and headed down the track. His feet were slipping around inside his pa’s old boots like two drunkards trying their first barn dance. Most of his cl. . .