Coincidences are funny things. For example, if Cullen Smith hadn’t stopped to take a drag on his rollup and contemplate the cruel joke of human existence as he loitered in the dusty, sun-baked street outside the store, things may have turned out differently. He might have gotten that daytime nap he so badly wanted. He might have forgotten about the church social that night. And he absolutely wouldn’t have seen the Whithers kid and her creepy damn cat stroll out the back entrance and vanish behind the neighboring fence. Smith frowned, watching, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Pretty sure she didn’t have Uncle Hank’s permission to be lighting out like that. Damn careless of the Jacksons to say the least. Not that it was any of his nevermind, of course. Wasn’t his damn kid. She was, what, ten? Or something? Old enough to make her own decisions about wandering around without supervision. None of his business, really. None of his business. Still... He took another long drag and tossed the crumpled paper cylinder aside, pacing around to the other side of the building in the direction they’d been heading, into the short, looming shadow of the Jackson’s store. Hell with it. Morbid curiosity was the only kind he still knew. -------------------- A half hour later the gravedigger shoved his way through the squeaking wooden doors of the Silver Strike, more determined to have a drink than ever. The heat was thickening outside, and even in the merciful shade of the saloon, he could feel the sweat beading on his neck. He’d lost them? How had he [i]lost them?[/i] There was nowhere else they could have gone. Job wasn’t exactly London Fair; he should have made the corner with time to spare, more than enough to have seen which direction the kid and her miserable bloody fleabag had headed. But no. Nothing. Even the tracks seemed to turn back on themselves. [i]Mysteries.[/i] He paused, hefting the heavy boxes under his arm. [i]Waste of bloody--[/i] “Hey, mister [i]Sith![/i]” Cullen let out a breath as a bunch of rough-round-the-edges town ne’er-do-wells started thumping on their table and hollering in his direction. He set his sights on the bar and kept walking. “Well if it ain’t the hound of Job, all done buryin’ bones in the backyard--” “Look like yer about ready for a pine box yerself pardn’r--” “--Mmhm.” “Why so gloomy pardn’r, ain’t you done dug youself up a ladyfriend yet?” “HAW!” “--Funny. Nice. That’s good,” he muttered, adding a highly specific expletive under his breath. He slouched across the floorboards and the establishment’s single threadbare rug, morose and half lost in thought, so determined to ignore everything and everyone around him that he nearly collided with some fop in a bowler carrying a pitcher of marked-up booze in the process. Middle of the bloody day and the dregs were already here. Stupid cow. Sodding Whithers kid. Not worth wondering about. Best not to get involved in other people’s troubles, or their secrets. He had enough of his own of both. He nodded, grimly as he made his way up, thumping the jingling boxes onto the bar. Fitzroy greeted him with a grunt and a tolerant glower. “What’s your poison, son?” “Black Dog.” Smith replied, folding his arms on the countertop, not bothering to sit down, “And make it a double so I won’t have to ask for another, yeh?” “Mighta known,” lamented the barkeep, “Ain’t no one else around here drinks that slop.” “Enh. A little taste of home. You know how it is” “Mhmm.” Fitzroy pushed the glass across the counter. “Tastes awful.” Smith took it carelessly in one hand, pausing. “...Yep,” he said, and knocked it back, making a gruesome face as it went down like midnight on the moor. He swallowed with difficulty, trying to hold back a coughing fit and casting a weary, furtive glance around the bar. Mercifully there were only two other paying customers at the bar, sat to either side of him at a polite, safe distance. A buttoned-up governess or something, sketching in a notebook and casting occasional dark looks at the card table, and some drifter in a red poncho, hunched over a glass and rapping on the bartop with some sort of armored gauntlet. Smith didn’t know him. He didn’t need to. He knew bad news when he saw it, and that was bad news painted in forty-foot high lettering. You could have put a rattlesnake on the other seat and he wouldn’t have known which was safer. He didn’t know the woman either. Schoolteacher, maybe. Looked like someone who liked rules. Smith glanced back over his shoulder, following her intermittent gaze. The fop was back at his seat at the card table without a care in the world, and the regulars were well on their way to skinning him alive. Maybe literally in Jimmy’s case. Was never quite sure about that one. He took another mouthful of the Scotch, feeling it scour in his throat and blossom like hot tar in his stomach. Yeah. This was just what he needed. In. Out. And then a few hours of sleep before... “Trust we’ll be seein’ you at the church social tonight, Mister Smith?” ...He’d forgotten. “...Bloody church [i]bloody[/i] social…” He buried the words in the bottom of his glass and tipped it back all the way. Another raucous cheer went up from the table behind him as someone lost another fat pile of money. There was no rest for the wretched.