The skies were clear and the air was warm, and it was a miserable bloody wretched day. Cullen Smith slumped morosely through the brightening streets of town, squinting. Someone’s wife or daughter or parasol-twirling step-sister called out a [i]Good Day[/i] to him, and he mumbled something that might have been a distracted “You too.” It was early for most of these people, but for him? ...He couldn't even tell anymore. Digging and hammering and tending by day, and then God only knows what come sundown. Three years of turbulent midnights. And last night had been a rough one. Maybe even worth talking to Marks about. Almost. Lost in thought, he barely noticed that he’d arrived at Jackson’s. Well. Time to get this miserable bloody errand over with. He put one foot on the lowest step and then stopped dead at the foot of the porch as the door swung open and he found himself right in the path of the Deputy Sheriff. Smith quickly turned his back, leaning against the post and fumbling in his pockets for paper and tobacco, pointedly scanning the street and the horizon; mentally reminding himself to finally get a proper cowboy hat so he could lower it forward over his eyes and give both of them a thin excuse to pretend he was somebody else. Carter was a good man, at least. Probably. Town like this, who even knew? [hr] He stepped into the Jackson’s store, letting his eyes adjust to the merciful shade. “Jackson.” he murmured, making eye contact with a large barrel of tacks. The storekeeper nodded, warily. “Smith.” And lo, the formalities were over. “...Yeah. So. Need a box of nails. Matches... “ He dropped a cracked shovel-head onto the countertop with a thump, the dark metal smeared with rust. “...Repair job on that.” “Hnh. I’ll be horsewhipped.” The shopkeep half-lifted the broken iron blade, examining the crack. “You hit granite down the cemetery..?” [hr] [i]He was panting, skin slick with cold sweat. Both men just stood there, gulping down night air. The thing between them groped nervelessly for the iron lodged in its skull and then lay still, silent and unmoving in the darkness. “...Nice work, Scrooge.” rasped the gravedigger at last. The accountant swallowed, drily. “Thank you sir.” Smith gripped the haft of the shovel and yanked, lifting the ruined blade. He turned it in his hands, blood glistening in the moonlight, before tossing it back to the ground, nodding toward it. “...Still coming out of your pay, though.”[/i] [hr] Cullen cleared his throat. “...Scrooge did it. Also goin' to need two more boxes of bullets,” He patted the Smith and Wesson model 3 six-shooter stuffed into the waistband of his pants -- One of these days he’d get a proper holster to go with the hat. “Usual caliber.” The Lady of the house looked over from her busywork at that, piping up with a note of something between desperation and relief in her voice. “Oh -- You’re nervous about this business with the cow too, Mister Smith?” “What c--” he cut himself off, paused. [i]Lie,[/i] whispered his better wisdom. “...Right,” he half-shrugged, vaguely, wiping his mouth on the back of one dusty sleeve. “The [i]cow.[/i] Well,” He sniffed, raising both eyebrows in an attempt to look interested, “...Better safe than sorry, right?” “Parker’s boys were here before you, buying up buckshot. Even Deputy Carter said it weren’t normal, and I could tell he was holdin’ his words...” Smith scratched the back of his hair, felt his attention fading. She was scared. He could almost smell it. That weird, familiar feeling: the terror of others. She was scared and she needed to know they were all in this together... Even him... “--right there in the middle of the night? Folk are saying it was ripped right open, but nothing was eaten--” The shopkeeper cleared his throat, laying the pouch and boxes onto the counter. “Mary, come on, that’s enough now.” Smith studied the floorboards. Dust and wood shavings. Musty rays of sunlight. He rolled the paper and stuck the end in his mouth without waiting for permission. “Yeah. Well.” He jerked the revolver a few times, flipping the heavy cylinder of the gun in and out of position in a motion of nervous, compulsive habit. “Maybe it was suicide.” His gentle reassurance was met with thick, glacial silence. He coughed, awkwardly, glanced to one side and there was Carter’s kid sat on the stairway, watching him with those unreadable doll’s-eyes. The cat hung in her arms, staring at him and growling. This, this was what happened when he left the shack. Disaster followed like a starving buzzard. Well to Hell with it. He was going for a drink and then maybe he’d get as much as a wink of sleep before it was time to get to work again. Cullen slid the money across the counter, stuffed the iron back into his pants, bundled up the goods under his arm. He mumbled something that might have been “Always a pleasure,” and stepped out, squinting, into the warm, clear, horrible sunlight.