Fate’s Bounty (Sully)
Posted By J.C. Montgomery on February 23, 2009
Filed Under Excerpts, Westerns | 1 Comment
© J.C. Montgomery 2009. All Rights Reserved.
He looked like the hindquarters of bad luck, and that was being kind. Herman Sidney Sullivan appeared to be a man who’d never had a happy moment. He was the Grafton Gazette’s editor and star reporter for a good reason: he seemed always to be in the wrong place at the right time.
When he was growing up, most people thought he was cursed. Even his family grew fearful of him. Upon reflection, each and every event was easily explained. But due to their frequency, and the fact that Herman seemed to be found nearby every time, made others question if he truly was caught beneath the dark storm clouds of fate that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
The man was a magnet for all that was dark and evil in the world. He said as much to me one night when he and I were sent to help Pastor Nichols with some chores as he was still recuperating from a broken leg. Normally the married women took turns tending him, but they were too busy planning and cooking for the Founders Day celebration.
Truth be told, no one wanted Sully anywhere near where the preparations were being made. Even though it was quickly proven that Jimmy Powell was the one responsible for the fire that almost destroyed the livery and general store, it was just one more leg on the run of bad luck Grafton had experienced since Sully moved to town and started the Gazette.
Watching him, I could almost see the weight of the world shift from one shoulder to the other as he shoved one of the pews up against a wall, making room for the banquet tables being delivered in the morning.
Every so often, he would stop and look toward the altar, sighing heavily as he did. No one had said a thing, but he knew why he’d been sent to the only place in town that appeared to be immune to whatever evil permeated from the poor man.
“Sully? You okay?”
A shake of the head was all I got.
“I know how you feel.”
“How could you?” He asked. Raising his head he looked me in the eye accusingly. I held his gaze. Just that morning Clara told me she’d missed her monthly. As hard as we’d tried to prevent it, we were going to have another mouth to feed come spring. I could barely keep up with what we had now and had no clue how we were going to manage.
“You really think you’re the only one who believes he attracts bad luck like flies to the wrong end of a cow?”
“Excuse me?”
“Clara’s pregnant again.”
Usually such a pronouncement garnered excited responses and congratulations. Sully knew better.
Unlike those in town that shunned him, my wife didn’t have it in her to turn aside her kind nature for fear of it being repaid by disaster. Since the day he arrived, she’d insisted that he come to the homestead at least once a week, offering him a homemade meal and the chance to spend a little time experiencing what a normal life was supposed to be like.
Over the last few months, he’d seen firsthand the deprivation that had become our way of life. He still came over as often, but it was with a basket instead of an empty stomach. Both my wife and I protested adamantly until he quietly pointed out that good Christian charity works both ways, and if it hadn’t been for ours, he might not have ever come to believe there were good people left in the world, let alone find them and come to care for them as much as he did us.
“I’m…I’m sorry Grady. I shouldn’t have presumed. It’s just that,” he hung his head and sighed wearily, “It happened again.”
“When?”
“Last night. Something bad, worse than anything before, is headed our way.”
Before I could question him, he waved his hand to cut me off, “I know, I know. I usually get more than that, but this time it was too thick, too…dark. I couldn’t see anything like I have in the past.”
Not long after Sully had begun visiting regularly, he admitted to having premonitions. At first I thought it was just a manifestation of the stress from having to deal with his bad luck and how people treated him because of it. After describing the fire and who’d be responsible a couple of days before it happened, I finally believed that Sully was cursed, just not in the way most people thought.
He made me swear to keep this little quirk of his personality quiet, which wasn’t a difficult promise to make. It was hard enough on the man having to deal with many of the townsfolk crossing themselves and the street every time he passed. If this got out, the man would face a fate usually reserved for charlatans and swindlers.
It was one thing to think the man was damned; it’d be another to learn it was true.
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Okay, I’ve found the soundtrack for reading this: *Raising Sand* … which also makes me think of *Firefly*.