The Travelling Man (2 page)

He marched towards Davey as the man forgot to run away. He swung the sledgehammer through the air and smashed it down onto Davey’s right foot. The pink flesh exploded as white bones shattered beneath the black metal head of the tool. Davey screamed initially until he collapsed on the ground and passed out. For some reason, Davey passing out infuriated Harlan beyond measure and before he could stop himself the sledgehammer was rising and falling with expert precision and murderous intent. What had once been his occasional employee, occasional drinking buddy and teller of funny tales, was now a bloody stain on the concrete below.

Harlan looked down as his muscles hummed under his shirt and sweat stained the thin fabric. His broad chest heaved with the effort under the hot sun and he panted like an overheated dog trapped in the back seat of a car. He wanted to believe that this instance was an anomaly and completely out of character, but lately he seemed to have more and more trouble holding his temper or even his tongue. At the last town council meeting he’d almost been totally overwhelmed by a strange urge to stand up and piss all over the circular table that they had all been sitting around. He had even started to rise before he’d come to his senses and sat down with a struggle. His slips in control were starting to become more and more frequent as though his own inner being was trying to burn his carefully constructed world and image. It was a crack in his world that was starting to widen and he dreaded what might spill out.

As he stood staring down at the bloody pulp on the concrete, he suddenly felt eyes on him. He whipped around quickly and found himself staring at a strange man across the road. The man was dressed in an immaculate pinstriped suit and smart hat; his eyes gleamed and sparkled and a small smile was etched across his thin lips. The man nodded ever so slightly as Harlan watched, rooted to the spot after his brutal crime had been, if not witnessed, then at least discovered.

“I’m sorry,” Harlan heard himself say aloud, confused at the very words themselves.

“Not to worry, Mr. Harris,” the man said with a clipped English accent. “These things do happen.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Harlan whispered, feeling tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

“Never compromise, never apologize,” the English gent replied jauntily. “But I must say, you have made quite the mess.”

“I slipped,” Harlan said, meaning that his façade had slipped, as if that explained the splattered mess on the floor.

“It could have happened to any of us, dear boy. I would offer to help with the clean up, but I’m afraid that manual
labor is not exactly my forte,” the man said apologetically. “But I will be seeing you soon, Mr. Harris, very soon.”

Harlan blinked and then the man was gone. There was no fading, no wisps of smoke, just gone. He stood there and felt a strange calm reach out and take a firm hold over him as he looked down at the mess before him and started to form a cleaning plan.

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Becky James was staring down the barrel of another dreary afternoon. She worked at the local diner in Granton and spent most of her days either
shoveling coffee and pie or else slapping away the wandering hands of the yokels.

She was 29 and still trying to figure out just what had happened to her life. One minute she had been Prom Queen with visions of leaving this dustbowl town far behind her with the bright city lights calling, and the next she was pushing 30, stuck in some crappy service industry job.

During high school she had been an avid and active member of the drama club. They’d had no budget and had to convert the gymnasium into a temporary theater space themselves every time that they had a show. But she had loved those times on stage. Under the spotlight was where she had always felt most at home and she longed for the pin drop silence of the theatre, followed by the explosion of applause.    

She held up a silver coffee pot and checked her reflection in the curved surface. She was still pretty enough to never be short of date offers on a Friday night. She was around five feet eight with long waves of blonde hair that she kept dyed to perfection, no matter if she could afford it that month or not. Her eyes had once sparkled with shimmering crystal blue pools, but now they looked dulled and drained of vitality. She pulled in her stomach that was no longer quite as concaved as it had once been, but the extra weight had filled out her curves to balance the gain.

Most folks in Granton were decent enough, but the miners always worked the night through to morning shifts due to the unbearable temperatures once the sun was at its apex. These were grubby men who wandered into town, often still covered in dust and dirt, and by late afternoon they were drunk, as to them it was the evening.

The Boron Mine was the main employer in Granton. Boron, from borax and borate evaporates, was an essential ingredient in the manufacture of glass, ceramics, enamel, agricultural chemicals, water softeners, and pharmaceuticals. As such, the mine was a profitable enterprise out in the middle of the barren desert.

Jim Lesnar owned the mine and was considered to be one of the most important men for many a surrounding county. Becky had only seen the man on a few occasions since they had been in school together and mainly then only at town functions. They were the same age but had hardly run in the same scholastic social circles. She had been the Prom Queen and he had been some weirdo creeping about in the shadows.   

Lesnar was now said to be practically a recluse and barely left the apartment that he’d had built near the mine. He was an ugly man but undoubtedly a rich one and a man’s wallet went a lot further than his face as far as she was concerned, but there
were
limits.

She looked around the late afternoon clientele. Most were regulars who came in so often that she rarely had to take anyone’s order. There were several of the miners crammed in around a booth. Father Jacobs was nursing a coffee and taking small bites from a pecan pie. He was a kindly old man who always seemed to start every sentence with an apology.
Mrs. Simpson and her usual crew of old farts were debating something to do with an upcoming bake sale. Any debate involving Mrs. Simpson was really a democracy in name only. The woman was a fierce and cold pensioner that never tipped with coin, only with caustic comments masquerading as advice. Her eyes were drawn to the table by the door as she spotted a stranger sitting in the booth alone. He was a slender man, dressed in an expensive looking suit topped with an elegant hat. The guy looked interesting based on the fact that he was a stranger and Granton saw few. She felt a small uncharacteristic blush touch her cheeks as he smiled and dipped his head slightly in a greeting.  

“Hey, honey, while we’re young?” Some large lump of a miner decked in red and black checks beckoned her from across the diner, diverting her attention.

She plastered a smile across her lips at the lumbering oaf, but as she turned back to the man by the door he was gone.

“Today would be nice,” the miner bellowed again grumpily, to the sniggers of his cohorts. 

She stiffened her resolve and told herself to think of the tips as she added a little wiggle to her walk as she crossed the room trying to make herself believe that she was only playing a part.

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Jim Lesnar stood by the window of his apartment with his hands clasped firmly behind his back. He was a short squat man at around five feet four with naturally blonde hair that bordered on white and had all but left the field of battle leaving behind remnants of a once great army. His torso was thick like an oak tree and his eyes were green and a little buggy. His arms were long and strong like an orangutan and his hands were large like shovels. His legs were short and squat and he waddled rather than walked. He was a self confessed unattractive man and knew that others considered him ugly. But he held the power over his employees; they ate and lived at his benevolence and he never let them forget it.

He was one of the few outsiders in Granton and his family had moved there when he was still young enough to attend the local high school and endure the jibes of his classmates which almost exclusively relied upon his physical appearance. He was known simply as “Troll” for most of his high school life, and the irony that he had eventually opened a mine was not lost on him. They were deep cuts that had still never fully healed and he often still employed his old classmates for the simple pleasure of making their lives hell before firing them.  

The mine below was shrouded in dusky light as only the night lights were operating at this hour of the afternoon. The air conditioning in his apartment was pumping out at full blast as the heat of the day baked down from up above, heating the earth to unbearable levels. He hated to hear the machines lying silent and dormant for even a minute of the work day, but he had been forced to change the mine’s operating hours by interfering legislation. As far as he was concerned, if a man wanted to risk his life for double pay then it was his God-given right to do so.

The small apartment was adequate for his needs but did not reflect his wealth. He was currently worth somewhere in the region of 85 million dollars, but he cared little for the money, only what it represented: success. The more he had, the more he was worth in all senses of the word. He often thought of himself as some kind of fairytale troll digging gold from the centre of the earth and hoarding it all for himself; all he lacked was a princess.

His school days had been full of repressed anger and swallowed bitter bile. He hadn’t just been an outsider to Granton, but he had been cursed with the sort of shape and face that demanded to be smashed and pummeled into pieces by a bully’s fist. He had learned quickly to duck below the eye line of his compatriots and to exist in a solitary world free of compassion and companionship. As a result, he had grown up sour and resentful, mistrustful of everyone around him and forever guarded. His one ray of light had been Jeanne Rainwood. She had been one of the popular cheerleaders’ set, but he’d always sensed a kindred spirit in her. He knew in his heart that she’d only hung out with the cruel girls for appearance’s sake and he had worshipped her from afar, imagining her loneliness and knowing deep down that they were kindred spirits. He had never plucked up the courage to ask her out, but he had watched her from a distance, dreaming of the life that they would one day live when he had finally proved himself worthy.  

His life since school had been just as lonely and empty of everything except the mine and his precious cargo. Money, he had found, may have bought respect, but it was only to his face. He could still hear their sneers and laughter behind his back and he knew just what they really thought of him.

He looked down into the pit below him, the hole in the ground that had showered him with riches and a kind of power. His eyes were drawn to a figure moving across the dirt through the shadowy low light. He reached out and hit the button for the PA system that he had rigged by the window for constant monitoring.

“Who’s there?” he shouted, loud enough to distort his voice through the crackling microphone.

For a second, a man stopped and looked up at him. The figure was dressed like a banker or stock broker. His elegant suit was power dressing of the highest order and Jim wondered if the guy was a salesman of some kind who had taken a wrong turning.

He turned away for a second to hit the main lights, but when the area below was flooded with powerful beams the man was gone. Jim stood motionless, staring into the deserted mine below, trying to understand if he had seen anyone at all. This place could play tricks on people but never him before. Some of the more impressionable workers had spoken in hushed tones of hearing voices and screams coming from the mine’s dark corners, but Jim had always dismissed such talk as superstition. His mind immediately took a well worn path along the lines that he was being made to look a fool again, a figure of ridicule and the butt of yet more jokes at his expense. Marshall Dinkins would be the first name on his list for such a mark of disrespect. Marshall was the sort of guy that had made his life hell in high school. He was still desperately clinging onto the hope that the day would come when he could ruin Marshall’s life, but he needed to keep the man employed in the meantime as simply firing the guy seemed insufficient. Unfortunately, Marshall was the sort of man that drew others to him and firing him now would cause too much disruption amongst the other miners who could, God forbid, even raise a strike or get the unions involved. Whatever he had just seen, or not seen, he pushed it aside in his mind and buried it in his own grave that he kept there for such occasions. 

His thick powerful hands squeezed together hard enough to crack the knuckles as he thought of the town and all of its residents. He thought of their two-faced natures when they came to him with their begging bowls for town improvements or sponsorship and how they must laugh as they cashed his checks.

He closed his eyes and pictured them all falling into the great gaping hole in the earth that he had carved out. One after the other they fell into the black pit, screaming as they tumbled and he
shoveled the dirt onto their trembling bodies. His face broke into a rare smile, but it was cruel and unnatural on his thick lips and wide mouth.

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Marshall Dinkins belched loudly and took the applause of his crew; it was his customary tip to leave in the diner.

He was a big man, as broad as he was tall and round of belly to boot. He hefted himself up and out of the booth, watching the cute ass of the waitress as he left. He had been hitting on Becky James for longer than it was decent to for a man in his position and yet he was still getting nowhere. He remembered being a couple of years above Becky in high school. Those were the days when he was a God walking as a man. He was captain of practically every school sports team and students and teachers followed him around like lost puppies, but those days were long gone and almost forgotten.