Currency of Souls

“I reckon I’d try.”

“Why?” When he looks up at me, the emotion in his eyes is more powerful than any bullet, powerful enough to make me drop my gaze and immediately feel ashamed of it.

I clear my throat, the words like glass tearing their way up my throat, slicing open my tongue. “Because no matter what you think of me, you’re still my son.”

He scoffs. “My father’s dead.”

“No I’m not, I’m standing right here. You’re looking at me, just as you’ve been looking at me every night since your mother died.”

“Since you killed her.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Yes you did. You killed both of you.”

“If that’s true then why do you come in here every Saturday night with a gun pointed at me? Can’t kill a dead man, y’know.”

I’m fighting a losing battle to keep my composure. I want to hug the little son of a bitch, squeeze the hate out of him, reclaim him while I still have the chance, force him to understand.

But I don’t understand it myself.

“The bullet wasn’t meant for you either,” he tells me and finally brings the gun out from beneath the table. I recognize it of course, seeing as how it used to have a home in my holster. No police issue weaponry in Milestone, no sir. You just take whatever you think you’ll need to get the job done. Back when there was a job to do, that is.

“It was for me,” he says, and I feel my heart shatter into a thousand pieces.

Whatever I might have said, whatever magic words I might have summoned from the ether are blown away by the woman’s scream. Both of us turn toward the bar, and see Carla convulsing, chopping that scream into stuttered wails as Flo, wincing, presses a damp cloth to the girl’s chest.

“Jesus.” I give the kid one final glance, hoping he sees the plea for another chance to talk this over, then I’m gone, storming across to the girl, my heart and soul in ruins as surely as if I was the one stretched out on the bar.

I haven’t gotten far, when Brody, slung over Wintry’s shoulder, calls out, “Go easy on her. She’s pregnant.”

And that takes what little wind is left in my sails right the fuck out of them.

I turn on my heel and Reverend Hill slams his glass down on the table and stands. “Enough.”

I want to kill him. Rage boils within me, fueled further by regret over Kyle and his intentions, rage at my blindness, at my cowardice, for never questioning the speed with which my world grew dark, or the pain I dealt the people fumbling around within it. “You son of a bitch. You never mentioned a child.”

“What difference does it make? People who cause fatal accidents very rarely get the luxury of counting their victims beforehand. Had everything proceeded here as it was damn well supposed to, you’d never have known any different, and that murderer’s conscience of yours would have been spared an extra little slice of reality.” He steps close, until our noses are almost touching. “Never forget, Sheriff, that I am the only thing standing between you and eternal damnation. I’m the closest thing you have to God, and as such I own you, so it would behoove you to stop questioning it and accept it as truth.”

“This is eternal damnation,” I counter, “And it seems to me that God would know what the fuck was going on, which you clearly don’t.”

Brody moans with pain as Wintry sets him down in his own chair next to Flo. Even in times of stress he knows better than to seat anyone in Cobb’s place.

The Reverend looks over my shoulder at the kid, then smiles. “Then let’s find out why things haven’t gone according to plan, shall we?”

Cadaver regains his seat amid the shadows.

Gracie spills bourbon over the girl’s exposed chest—the wound is deep—eliciting another agonized shriek from her, and I know I’m right. This is eternal damnation, or at the very least, some kind of waiting room where all we get to do is sit and stew and wait for our number to be called. I decide in that moment, without even the faintest idea how it’s going to go down, that more than these kid’s numbers are going to be called tonight.

The Reverend stands before the kid, who has a blood-soaked hand clamped over his belly. “Well now,” he says, “Looks like you’re in a bit of a pickle here.”

“We need a doctor,” Brody says, his pallid face slick with sweat. “Please.”

The Reverend cocks his head. “And why should we do something like that for a man who introduced himself by shoving a gun in a lawman’s face, then threatened to shoot the only fella in here who seemed inclined to help him?”

“Gracie, call Doctor Hendricks,” I tell her, but the Reverend raises a hand he’d like you to believe was made to heal sinners.

“Do no such thing.”

“Reverend,” Cobb says. “This ain’t how he’s supposed to go anyhow, so what harm is there in fixin’ him up?”

I look squarely at Cobb. “Can you help them?”

He nods frantically.

“Will you?”

Everybody present knows what it will cost Cobb if he does, but damned if he doesn’t go on nodding that big old shaggy head of his. For a brief moment my envy extends from Wintry to this sad old man with his sagging body, who, if nothing else, has the kind of heart most of us would, and have, killed for.

But then the Reverend glances up at him and scowls. “You stay out of this, Cobb. When we need the black magic of heathens, you’ll be the first to know. ”

The dying kid fixes the nudist with an odd look. “Your name’s Cobb?”

Cobb, equally perplexed, nods. “Yeah. Why?”

The Reverend sighs. “Shut your goddamn mouth. Now listen here, kid. All I want from you is a simple answer. This town’s reserved for the dreamless, the lost and the hopeless. You may be a no-good piece of shit, but I bet you’ve got ambitions, right?”

“Sure. Seeing another sunrise was one of them.”

“From somewhere other than Milestone.”

“Yeah.”

“Why is it, then, that instead of being in the driver seat of your nice new—stolen—midnight blue Corvette heading North, right the hell out of this burg, maybe with that filthy whore of yours giving you a blowjob while you listen to some of the devil’s music on the stereo…why is it that you’re sitting here dying?”

Brody’s eyes widen until they seem to fill his face. “Shit, I’m dying?” He starts to chuckle. “Fuck me, Dean. Looks like we get to do that duet after all.”

The Reverend slaps him, a quick dry open-handed slap that knocks the mirth right off the kid’s face. He looks stunned, his breath coming in short hard rasps, then angry. “Preacher,” he says, mustering as much iron into his words as he can. “You’re lucky I’m down or I’d have to beg my Momma for forgiveness for busting your nose.”

And on hearing that, God forgive me, I find myself warming to the bastard.

“Answer the question, sonny,” Reverend Hill tells him. “Now, or I guarantee that shot to the gut will seem like a bee sting by the time I’m done with you. You see, here we follow a strict set of guidelines. Sinners atone for their sins by ridding the world of filth, just like them. There are outposts like this everywhere. Each one has its own methods too. Here at Eddie’s, you get to drive. But seeing as how you’re past doing anything of the kind, and therefore, all but useless to me, you’d better start answering my questions. So, for the last time, why are you here?”

Brody ignores the priest and glances at Cobb again. “She had the same name as you.”

Cobb blanches. “Who did?”

Brody starts shaking, worse than before, and suddenly his eyes are on me with such intensity, even Hill looks over his shoulder. “Sheriff,” the kid says. “Mind if I give you something?”

“Go right ahead, as long as it isn’t a bullet.”