Inheritence

The sun was sinking behind the treeline when John first glimpsed the town. His old wagon had creaked and groaned along the last mile of disused path. A dozen days worth of dust filled the creases in his brow and stung his eyes when he wiped away the sweat; he longed for a hot bath and a cold beer. He had considered stopping to rest before night fell, but his determination had paid off, as his destination began to apparate in the clearing ahead. A ghostly silhouette in the haze of dusk. Once a small but thriving go-between station, Cupid’s Creek had long since been abandoned. John had never seen a place so empty, so desolate, and yet so intimately intriguing.

“Not long now, old man,” he said to his cargo, and the expected response of silence hung in the air.

***

He had kicked it three weeks earlier.

The old man was a drunkard and well known for it, so it had come as no surprise to John when he heard the news. What had surprised him was that he had left something to him in his will.

“What’s the catch?” John had asked Mr. Finnegan - a short and exasperated solicitor, glistening in the Arizona heat but persevering in wearing his dark grey suit jacket to maintain his professional facade.

“He wants you to bury him,” he said, his focus flicking frantically around the mess of papers on his desk.

“I’ll grab a shovel then,” John said, as he turned to leave.

“In Cupid’s Creek,” Mr. Finnegan was looking up now. John stopped in the doorway. The old man had always been able to find a nerve, and it seemed that even death couldn’t hinder him.

“How’s about I just leave him to rot where he dropped, and you hand over what he left me anyway,” John said, carefully and deliberately. He had long since abandoned his holster, and the evils it carried, but his threatening presence was clearly felt by the solicitor, who seemed to shrink into his chair.

“Hate to tell you John, but he was a clever old bastard, -” John wasn’t in the mood for an explanation, and motioned towards a now panicked Mr. Finnegan, “ - h-he didn’t give me nothing but his will. Said he’d left you something in the spot he wants to be buried. I swear John, I swear.”

John paused. He knew the man had no reason to lie. But he also knew that the old man had every reason to.

“How do I know what he’s left me is worth it?”

“He said it's something he owes you. Here,” Mr. Finnegan handed over the will. John snatched it and turned to leave in one motion.

“Clever old bastard, indeed,” John muttered, reluctantly accepting his father’s final errand.

***

Once through the trees, the town was an open book. John tried to piece together its story as he glanced around. There was a large but long empty trading post at the top of the road. With its patchwork boardwalk out front, it must’ve been too busy to ever close for repairs caused by the business itself. The barren saloon still whiffed faintly of cheap liquor, and the door featured a faded sign restricting firearms, which ironically hung above a pair of bullet holes. The fading sun glittered across the surface of the drying creek that the town had been named for, its original heart shape now deformed and dried.

John took it all in, but his eyes fell upon a neat little shack near the former pastures. A small but cosy looking shack that, despite being left untouched for decades, seemed to reach its arms out and hold him, transfixed. He wondered if this place had meant something to the old man. He knew that he had been born here. He had assumed his mother had been too. And he even felt some strange connection to this place laying dormant within himself. Maybe, he thought…

He shook the feelings off along with the dust that clung to his overcoat, and pulled the will from his pocket. The careful legal looping of Mr. Finnegan laid out a list of terms that John couldn’t bring himself to decipher, but at the bottom was a message scratched into the paper that could only have belonged to the old man. It read:

‘Gold and fortunes, here they lie,

In shade of old oak tree,

Her silken song may guide you,

Grave as it may be!’

“Horseshit!” John muttered, scrunching the paper up in his hand. Riddles, always damn riddles, he thought. The old man was never one to get a job done easy. Always had to teach some ridiculous lesson, or hand out some elaborate punishment. John still had no idea which one this was…

***

“Pa, what is Cupid’s Creek like?” the young boy asked, as he diligently carried an assortment of cans and tins and bottles between the hand cart and the shelves at the back of the kitchen. The old man sat slumped in the single dining chair, which had belonged to his own father before him. He felt he had done his share of the chores - carefully selecting the whiskey from the hand cart and transporting it to the kitchen table - and was now supervising his son as he finished the rest.

“It’s where I grew up,” the old man stated, as if he was being questioned by a lawman.

“I know Pa, but -” the boy’s curiosity had gotten him into trouble before, but his confidence always overcame any fear of consequences, “- what was it like there?”

“Boy, just you concentrate on unpacking that cart,” he said sternly, before turning his attention back to the bottle. A soft apology escaped the boy’s lips, but he knew that his patience would pay off.

“A beautiful little town, it was,” said the old man, staring down the neck of the bottle as he reminisced, “It sat a little ways off the main track ‘cross the river, but damn near everyone in the state knew it was worth a visit.”

He paused, swigging heavily as he did. A solemn sigh escaped his lips as he came up for air, “Town like that is built on the backs of people, good people - y’hear me John - and when it lost those people…”

The old man swigged again, holding back the tears that were forming in his eyes.

“What happened to it?” the boy pushed.

Wiping his face, the old man muttered, “hell knows, boy. Last I heard they were battling against the sickness, but ain’t nobody been back there in a long time.”

The boy knew when his father was past his limit. Still, his curiosity had been peaked, and so he pushed a little further.

“Pa, was Mother still there when you left?”

The old man erupted from his chair. Palm cracked against skin. The old man’s whopping paw connected with the boy’s face. “You don’t have the right to mention her, boy!”

“Pa, I-Im sorry. I w - wont ask again,” John sobbed, cradling his raw red cheek in his soft pale hands.

“You best not boy, else you’ll be wishin' to trade places with her,” said the old man, as anger turned to regret. His hefty frame dropped in a heap to the floor, the smash of the whiskey bottle not enough to drown out his violent wails.

“I’m so sorry Evelyn, I never should’ve left ya,” he bellowed openly to the empty room.

John stood and watched as this unfolded. This man had raised him, had done his best to care for him, and had been broken by something he could never understand. But even at this young age, he felt no sympathy. In fact, he pitied the man, and he was determined to do all he could to avoid following his path.

***

The scrawlings had mentioned a grave, and John figured that’d be the best place to start. But as he looked around him, he realised the sheer size of the boulder he was being asked to push uphill.

Plague had struck the town of Cupid’s Creek many years ago. John had seen this scene many times before in his travels - so much so that he now feared a cough much more than he feared the noose - but he’d never felt such sorrow before today. All around him, he could feel the suffering, the pain that had been felt here. The woodshop was almost shadowed by stacks of coffins that had clearly been in high demand. The church’s doors were boarded shut, with ‘may he have mercy on us’ scrawled across them in thick red paint. The small cemetery nearby spilled past its trampled fences, a sea of flimsy wooden crosses stretching deep into the treeline behind.

John sighed. He knew the old man had left long before plague arrived, and yet he felt that this was somehow exactly what he had planned. John cursed his name. Was this all just a trick, he thought, some final tedious task with no meaningful purpose?

The last of the sun’s light was disappearing behind the horizon. John was tired, and the graves certainly weren’t going anywhere in a hurry, so he decided to begin his search in the morning. His body ached from spending the last few weeks sleeping on the ground and he thought a night in a bed would give him a much better start the next day. Plus, he thought, whatever plague had emptied this town must’ve made itself vacant long ago too. His mind was made up, and he knew exactly where he planned to stay.

Once again, the shack by the pastures called to him. Like a siren, its very presence seemed to lure him in. The boards creaked underfoot as John stepped carefully towards the door. Pushing it open slowly, his eyes were met with darkness and his nose with a deep musky odour, not as off putting as John had expected. In fact, the smell was almost familiar. It’s gotta be, he realised…

John stepped into the darkened room. The last trickles of fading light peeked around the edges of the drawn curtains, and he could just about make out the shapes of the furniture set up around the room: a dining room table with a single chair, a row of counters and cabinets, a large bed, a small cot next to it. Whoever had lived here didn’t have much, but the whole room felt welcoming. John struck a match and lit a nearby lantern, spreading an orange glow across the room.

It was coated in a thick layer of dust, giving everything a dull, grey tone. But flashes of colour burst from all its corners: the pillow cases were hand stitched in stripes of greens and reds, an old blue checkered tablecloth that was folded neatly over the single dining chair, and hanging above the curtains, themselves a deep shade of purple, was a framed silk needlework with the quote:

‘In every condition, in sickness, in health/ In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth.’

John recognised it immediately. It was from a hymn his father would sing to himself when he was too drunk to stand. It all but confirmed it. This was the house where the old man had lived. The house where his mother…

Suddenly, the wheels were spinning in John’s head. He hastily unfolded the will and read the old man’s riddle again. ‘Her silken song may guide you’. John threw open the curtains. He squinted through the filth that clung to the window, and saw it. A huge oak stood proud in the field behind the shack. And at its base, a grave.

***

The old man sat across from his solicitor. His familiar headache made the sun that was blasting through the windows sting his eyes.

“They’re sure it’s terminal?” Mr. Finnegan said solemnly. He would be sad to lose the business, but devastated to lose a friend.

“Doctor said I’d be lucky to see sun up by friday next” said the old man, sipping his hair of the dog.

“What did John say?” Mr.Finnegan asked, but the old man stayed silent. “Well,” he sighed, “I can get all the legal formalities written up this evening,” said Mr. Finnegan, “but is there anything you wish to leave to anyone? To John?”

“I ain’t got nothing to give him,” he stared into his glass, watching the dark liquor swirl. Mr. Finnegan was disappointed in his friend, but no more than the old man was in himself.

“But I do owe him something,” he suddenly shifted forward in his seat and began scribbling something on the documents in front of him.

“Hey, you can’t - what is it?”

The old man looked up.

“His home.”

***

Evelyn Mary Harbottle

1782-1804

May her spirit live on

In the life she gave her

Own for

John (sr) Peter Harbottle

1773 - 1823

'Clever old Bastard'

His spirit lives on

In his son, John (jr)