All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred four)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part one hundred four)

They carried on disrespecting the remains. Thrown out, pockets rifled. Inconvenient alive and wanted passed…

By the sheriff, by the robbed girl—by any number, maybe his own parents. To enjoy saying Richard was, on a sigh, spared of Richard is.

About to turn up. Well, they never knew.

He would have no house of his own, going up Tinker’s road, but any house might hold what he craved, and everyone’s stood inviting.

When you were on the floor of a jail cell, not well enough, not willing enough, to fight for a cot, you might put it all to yourself in this ruminating way. He knew he’d woken, dozed and woken, through fits of vomiting, with this acceptance as well, that he was leaving Cookesville. Had started off already, for the county boundary, outside Holland’s reach. Last night, in his mind, he had. Hell with Hopper, hell with thieves. There was plenty of money once you crossed the line.

“Back off, Everard.”

The man shoved him again. Knew his name.

Richard fell away, tottering, but feeling in his foot-to-foot motion the pacing of a wildcat. He flew and tackled the man to the ground. Patted out a fallen branch, pressed with both hands, this to the man’s throat. All the while his quarry kicked and writhed. All the while Hopper and the quarry’s friend used fists, boots, finally a rock.

A sunburst. The collar under Richard’s neck was stiff with blood.

Now real sun, through the barred hole venting stench from the cell. A lighter-voiced retch. A cough, a woman’s.

“Just look quick, ma’am. Miss, are you all right? You seen that one a few times.”

“That’s Richard Everard.”

He opened eyes, confirmed that the speaker was Ebrach’s Mrs. Koker. The other was his accuser. From meeting the girl’s watering eyes, he snapped his head aside…and his head withstood the motion. Under the cot he saw a body, issuing noises of a still-living man.

“Everard!” the constable said. “Sit yourself up. I can have him on his feet, if you want, ma’am.”

“That’s for Rachel to say.”

“I told you,” Rachel said. “I never saw his face.”

Richard let the constable be right about the standing. It took time, but wanting to shoulder all that was due him, he unfolded, caught Rachel’s eye and held it. Mrs. Koker was telling her, sotto voce, that all Cookesville must rejoice if she would finger Richard; that Mr. Ebrach would like it, in particular.

“But I didn’t see his face. It could have been anyone.”

She lied.

111

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred five)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)