Story 28 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – The No Good Killer

This piece I also started a while ago - spurred by a flash piece about Jonathan Barley - and at last finished it this month.

Story 28 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – The No Good Killer

What was once the only street in town was still quiet this early in the morning. Most people lived in the joining blocks of dilapidated buildings of wood and iron sheets. Those as could afford better housing built their mansions on the outskirts of the booming town, their high fences keeping the fast-growing city out of plush gardens filled with shade.

Jonathan Barley closed his faded front door behind him, stuck his hands deep in his pockets and started down the street to where the old shop was. Although old in a rush town like this where thousands of people clamouring for a square of soil was a matter of days and months, not years or decades. This shop was the first to lay its foundations in the main street. By now countless others had opened in the side streets and hawkers made their rounds every day.

He made sure he kept close to the buildings, walking only a circle past one of the many taverns where, after a Friday night, the drinking had gotten more out of hand than other nights and red-stained sawdust were trampled out of the door and into the packed-dirt street. In the dim interior a few lost souls could still be seen hanging limp on chairs or crouched over tables, smoke issuing from their lips as they spoke to whoever would listen or the air if no one was near.

The few people already up and about cared little for the man picking his way down the street. Mostly on their way to the shop as well, they kept their distance and scolded their children when they stepped too close.

Jonathan looked down as one particular brave boy ran up and pointed. “He killed a man,” the boy bragged to another which still had the look of civilized city about him.

The mother scolded and he ran back to her side, cackling to the friend who stared at him with wild eyes.

“The Sheriff may have let you off, Barley, but the Devil will have you yet,” she said and made her way to the other side of the two wagon-wide street where she could walk in safety.

Jonathan ignored her and the children, casting his eyes to the ground and counting the paces still needed to get to the shop. When that didn’t work, he started to go over everything he would need to buy to last through the week.



The shop wasn’t much to look at from outside. The sign painted over the door still bore the same spelling mistake after two years even though the paint had started chipping and peeling over a year ago. Inside everything you could need out here was stacked to the roof. Food, fabric, implements, the odd bottle of miracle cure, fire arms and even a crystal chandelier that some guy hard on his luck had pawned for a pistol and some rounds. One of the first to break, he was found three days later where he had shot himself in the pit he called his mine. The funeral was quickly over and forgotten, the pit divided between other men before the day was out.

A little bell over the door rang as Jonathan pushed it open. The friendly face of the shopkeeper fell instantly as he saw who was in his shop.

“Come to scare the customers away again, Jon,” he snarled.

Jonathan looked around the shop. Two or three faces looked at him from between shelves before hastily gathering up what they would need and making their way to the till.

“Still take my money even if I scare them away, don’t you.”

He walked to the small bookcase. Every week more titles were crammed into it as people sold everything they owned for shovels or pans or another spit of land where they could dig for gold.

He ran his fingers along the faded spines, picking a few of the larger tomes to carry home with him. Lamp oil, flour, salt, sugar and coffee followed.

“Paying with blood money?”

He looked up, keeping his face placid as Carl, one of the rich man’s sons leaned closer with his red face.

“Three men died in that pit of yours yesterday, Carl – wouldn’t you say those coins in your hand could better go to feed their families? The men did die to get the ore for you.”

Jonathan placed a couple of notes on the counter, followed by a small gold nugget – his ‘private payment’ for being able to buy there.

“Enough of my blood money for you, Eton?” Jonathan asked the shopkeeper. He looked at the other customers and his moustache wagged as he mumbled something, placing the nugget in his pocket and putting the notes in the till.

“See you in church tomorrow,” Carl called after him.

“What, the doors open again for sinners like me?” he asked over his shoulder, giving the man a lopsided grin.



The church stood on the other side of the street, north, where the centre of the town was before gold was discovered here and the plundering hoards descended to pillage all that could be had from the soil and water. Its white walls now seemed grim and grey, the spire no longer the tallest structure, the bronze cross atop it turned a sickly green with time.

The doors were locked, a heavy chain binding them shut. The street in front of it seemed untouched, unlike the marred and rutted fronts of the rest of the street, as if the people feared the building and could bind God within with their heavy chains.

Jonathan stared at it for a moment. He hadn’t been inside for a year now, had barely looked towards it for the same amount of time. When he was declared a free man by the judge he had gone there only to be bewildered by the small congregation the church still held. No place for a sinner between them, he had realized and decided never to go back.

Only the very old buildings in the centre of the town was built from stone. The old inn had been rebuilt after a blaze, leaving a shell he had renovated and made his home. A kingly home for the richest man in town. How the mighty fall.

He still got flashbacks every time he passed the hotel on his way back to his house, and he forced himself to pass it and take the sights of his mind in, fuzzy though they may become. It would be his penance, he had told himself after the judge decided he wasn't guilty. And he told no one of the flash backs and the fear that overcame him each time he saw when he passed there. The others seemed to have forgotten the place Arnold had died. A new rug lay on the boards and a piano was placed over it. Gaudy music was played on it long before the sun started to sink. But many other men had also died in there, where riches could be dragged from the ground beneath their feet men would not find it difficult to find something to fight over.



The side of the street he was walking on cleared as he passed the hotel, as if his pistol would suddenly appear in his hand and he would randomly fire on all that passed him. He had buried that pistol as soon as the sheriff returned it to him and wished it could rot away like wood and not keep pestering him. He closed his eyes as the scenes flashed into his mind.



“I ain’t giving you anything."

“It was mine to start off with – you owe me the money!”

“You have a whole mansion to yourself? What’s 10 000 to a rich man like you?"

Jonathan felt his heart beating faster and sweat beading on his brow.

“You got your mercy from me went I lent you the money, don’t come groveling now, Arnold.”

“Groveling?”

The pistol was in his hand and pointed at Jonathan when he rested his glass on the table. He pulled his own colt from its holster and pointed it at Arnold. His fired. Arnold's only clicked before he sank to the floor with blood pooling on his vest.

He had killed a man. A friend. Someone he had known before the gold fever caught them at sea and swept them inland to where muddied men scrounged for every penny they could. Someone who had stood with him since he boarded his first ship at 12 because his family was too poor to feed all their children. They had seen the whole world together for twelve years.

He took the other nugget he had in his pocket and threw it on the ground in front of the hotel. He didn’t know why he did it, but every week he left one of the nuggets where the deed had happened. Paying for his sins, he grinned to himself. And there was always a willing hand to clear the gold away.



The Mansion was once the biggest house in the town. The moguls had come and taken over as they saw fit, building bigger and higher until his house looked more like a cottage than a mansion. Now its paint was peeling even more than the church's and the bottom floor's windows were boarded up when he realized they weren't going to stop throwing stones until all the windows were knocked out. He carried the heavy bags into the empty house and locked the door from the inside. On the bottom floor a few lamps were left burning for his return and his eyes soon adjusted to the half-dark of the house. The second floor, where he spent most of his time, had more light and air and he could see well beyond the main street from the window. On a clear day he could even see the line of trees where the mining activity ended and nature took over again.



A knock came at the door followed by a soft voice. He unlocked and opened it, letting in a bedraggled man. His trousers may have been another colour than brown, but after so much mud and grime it had turned into a nondescript brown colour much the same as the soil from the mine. It was torn in a couple of places, and a stained shirt and coat made out the rest of his ensemble. He was older than most on the mines, his beard a grey with streaks of white in it. Deep set eyes glared back at the street before he entered the dark house, wringing a limp hat in his hands.

“I thought I wouldn’t have to come today," he said with a wry smile.

“Come sit,” Jonathan answered and turned up the lamps in the room.

The old man sank down on a plush chair and leaned back slowly until the cushions enveloped him.

“You’re a good man, Jonathan Barley,” he said, his voice taking on the proud air it must have had before he too fell out with the gold fever.

“Not many who’d see it your way. Coffee?"

“Yes, thanks. With a spot of something stronger,” he winked and followed him to the kitchen.

Jonathan laughed. “If it weren’t for you my stash would rot with the rest of the house."

“You mock, Jon, but there’s a time to pick up what’s left and go while the getting’s good.”

“Like you left?”

“Don’t change the subject. I'm 68, you're over forty years younger. Still a lot of life ahead of you, you know."

“I know.”

“Walked past the hotel again did you?”

“Aye.”

The man watched him stare at the boiling water.

“They'll forget you yet, Jon, they just need another good murder or something to get their minds off it."

“Ten other people were murdered last month. One of them by Carl's son and you don't see him being ostracized from the rest, do you? He sits in that church every Sunday acting as pure as snow after another night's drinking and who knows what else."

“It gets written in their book, Jon. All of them. A sad day when the church itself won't give sanctuary."

“It’s not the church, it’s the people.” His mouth turned to a grim line. He poured the coffee, adding a shot of brandy to the old man’s cup. While waiting for the coffee to cool, he decanted most of the flour, sugar and coffee into jars, packing them into the man’s worn back pack.

“Should hold you over another week,” he said, trying to change the subject. Not that it helped.

“You know,” the man sighed. “If I don’t last the week, you know, I want to ask you a favour.”

“You ask me every week, Herbert.”

“Yeah, but every week my impending doom is closer at hand.” He winked, taking another draught of the laced coffee. “I know my soul will leave this earthly body, but I don’t want to be laid to rest in the city.”

“In the woods, I know. Long time before that grave will have to be dug.”

“Don’t bother with a coffin, things are too expensive as it is. Just lay me in the ground and let me be. A simple cross to mark the grave of the old gold panner.”

“And a bottle of whisky at your feet, hey?”

“That ain’t very holy. No, I want to leave all this behind once I’m in the ground. No liquor or gold or keepsakes. Maybe a flower or two. Hell, maybe even the reverend will get a few others to come to my funeral.”

He laughed as he did every Saturday when he came to collect a week’s food. He too had had a rough life, though he never killed a man. But he was cynical of most disliked most of the town. He had a soft spot for the needy, though and usually had doled out most of his food by the time Wednesday rolled around, leaving him to go and knock on Jonathan’s door again, seeing as the ladies from the soup kitchen didn’t like his stance on not going to church on Sunday.



“You could have stayed a pastor, Herbert,” Jonathan said after a while.

“Still am. Go out to the shacks every Sunday come rain or shine.”

“Aye. But in a church, I mean.”

“An’ with nice clothes and soup kitchens and a green bronze cross on a tall spire.”

“And a bell.”

“I wasn’t made for one place or one building.” He was silent for a moment. “The people, they gathered three hundred last week.”

“It’s coming on, that’s good.”

“Children too, you know. Maybe we even have the drinking houses out of the poor part before the tavern in high street closes down. Bunch of barbarians,” he took another sip. “Did you see how the place looked this morning? And they call us civilized – well, not us, but the people as lives here. Bloody disgrace if you ask me.”

He downed the last of his coffee. “Now that will warm a man up,” he said, rising and rubbing his hands together before swinging the sack onto his back and slipping out of the side door.



The stranger came late that afternoon on the weekly post wagon – not the best time to get into a new town by any rate. He looked travel worn though his suit was obviously well-tailored and his shoes, though dusty, still held together like newly bought ones. He carried a suitcase in one hand and a cane in the other. His face was young and the cares of the world seemed not to have left a mark on his skin yet, though his eyes flashed with wisdom beyond his years.

Jonathan watched him from the second story window and waited to see if he had anywhere to go.

The man took out a pocket watch and looked at it for a moment before snapping it shut and looking around him.

People were starting to stare and he tried to get to the side walk where he could get out of people’s way as the wagon rumbled off. He looked at the watch again and tried to stop a few people that passed him. From the other side of the street, from an alley, he could see the figures of Carl’s three sons move towards the new man. Jonathan knew better than to wait and ran down the stairs to the street without a second thought.



It was quite dark out already and most people were making their way home or to the tavern, none wanting to stop to speak to a stranger.

The trio of Carl’s sons lumbered slowly across the street.

Jonathan was at the man’s side before the trio reached them. He looked up, startled, stepping back when he saw Jonathan stepping between him and the trio advancing to him.

He saw that only one of them had a weapon on him.

“Step away from him, Jon, we’re the welcoming committee in this town,” Carl junior said.

“What? And let you kill another man? You must think me really daft.”

“How about this? He hands over that suitcase of his, and I let you both go. Or I send you to the Devil and get the suitcase anyway.”

Jonathan kept his eyes on Carl jr and heard the thud of the suitcase on the ground.

“Just, take it, please,” he heard the man pleading behind him. Carls’ second son took care of removing the suitcase. Carl jr was still reaching for his gun when Jonathan grabbed his arms, getting the gun away from him. He cocked it, pointing it in his face.

“Leave.”

He could feel his hand shaking and kept the memories of past deeds from clouding his mind now. “Leave.”

“You won’t shoot me, you know you’ll be-“

Jonathan fired at the ground.

“Leave,” he said again. Around him the street had cleared.

Carl jr edged backwards. Jonathan fired another shot into the ground and they ran.

“Idiot,” he said under his breath and cleared the barrel from bullets before throwing the useless weapon on the ground.

He turned to the man. “Sorry about your suitcase, if there is anything you need?”

But the man was grinning. “No, thank you. My research my take a bit longer now, but, no. Nothing that can’t be replaced on my way back.”

“Research?”

“I’m a geologist, collecting rock samples around the area.”

“So that heavy suitcase?”

The man grinned. “You know of a place I can find a bed for the night?”

Jonathan showed him the inn.

“I’ll get you a drink – to thank you.”

“No thanks, I don’t drink.”

“A meal then.”

“I also don’t go into the inn.”

“Don’t like it?”

“It doesn’t like me.”

“A church man, I take it.”

He laughed. “Guess some of that’s true-“

Carl came from his store. “Don’t mind him. He’s a no good killer this one. Better stay away from him.” He pulled at the man’s arm to get him away. “I’m Carl Jenkins I’m the-“

“Father of the younger Carl that just robbed and almost killed me?” his face was passive.

“I..uh, that was just youthful shenanigans, you know, mister, eh…”

“Pierce.” He looked at the man’s hand but did not shake it. People had gathered around to see the stranger.

Carl paused. “Pierce? From the mining company?”

“Indeed. I see you have made quite a life for you here in the high street. Shame about all the shanties.”

“Truly a shame.”

Pierce turned to Jonathan. “Well, Mr. Barley, my father had rave reviews about you. He sent me here to make sure that the paper you wrote on the decline of gold was factual.” He pumped his hand up and down.

“I do believe you were right.” He looked back at the inn. “I have also heard of your good deeds concerning the less fortunate of the panners.”

“Indeed.” He could barely breathe with so many people watching them.

“Ah, yes, the great are usually never known as such in their own homes. Will you mind if I stay with you for tonight at least? I had hoped to remain anonymous, but after this show of barbarianism from the gentlefolk I’d rather spend my night at the house of the No Good Killer.”