The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

Gerri Brightwell Williamsville

From Alaska Quarterly Review

By the time Matthis crests the last hill and catches sight of what must be Williamsville, his old bones ache from three days of riding and his tongue’s dry and rough behind his teeth. Each time he licks his lips he tastes dirt, and when he touches his jacket puffs of dust rise off it. But there spread before him is the valley at last, and there hazed by distance the town, smaller than he’d imagined and untidy as a heap of crates dumped on the far bank of the great Pine River. As for that river, it’s nothing but a shallow surge frothing between boulders, a river a man could easily ford, this time of year at least.

Williamsville — the sort of town Matthis knows so well he’s wearied by this glimpse of it. There’ll be a bank and hotel and general store with men in starched collars and oiled hair, and smaller, shabbier businesses straggling out along the main street: a blacksmith, a livery, a bathhouse and laundry, a carpenter who’ll knock together a few planks just good enough to carry a dead man the short walk to the cemetery. Staked out on the raw ground just beyond, shacks and tents where the town will grow, if it lasts long enough. And everywhere filthy gaunt men, the very men Matthis took care to steer clear of out in the hills, because miners are a distrustful breed. In towns like this they skulk along the streets, ghostly with dust and morose from cheap liquor, while the lucky few who’ve dug up some kind of riches sit down freshly bathed to a hotel dinner and halfway decent whiskey, or take a whore to bed.

Matthis clucks at his horse, dry tongue against dry mouth, then sits back as the horse leans away down the slope, its head low, its hooves scraping as it finds its way around boulders and oily-leafed thornbushes. When the horse stumbles Matthis lays one hand on its neck, says gently, “Hey, old boy, steady now,” and together they wait as rocks knocked loose shiver off down the hillside and leave a gasp of dust on the air, no breeze to push it away, no breeze at all. Matthis tips back his hat. With his cuff he wipes sweat from his forehead, feels the rasp of grit across his skin. How hot it is. He never used to mind, but now in these hills — it’s enough to sap a man’s spirit, to make one day melt into the next.

Away to the north clouds are bunching up above the hills. Across the narrow plain nothing moves. Even the pale track of road from the south is empty, as though the press of the afternoon sun is too much for any creature, and when Matthis touches his heels to the horse’s belly and the horse shifts one foot then another down the slope once more, suddenly his chest tightens and in all this heat he shivers. For a moment he holds still, that clutching around his heart almost painful, an old unease stirring, then he breathes deep and hard and he fixes his attention on the route ahead because just below lies a jumble of rock from an old slide. He nudges the horse to the right of it, a long way around perhaps, but when at last they reach the cracked earth of the valley bottom they’re headed north to where the river widens and slows just above the town’s cemetery.

Here on the flat Matthis kicks the horse into a canter. One hand grips the gritty leather of the reins but the other rests just above his thigh, fingers cupped, muscles ready to swing that hand down to his holster then fast up again bearing the weight of his gun, and to fit that gun precisely into a spot a few inches from his chest. But not yet. The valley’s empty, after all, and the town still some way off, puckered by the heat. This is his way — to make himself ready, to guard against what he himself is, the bringer of death to men that other men want dead. It occurs to him that maybe today this wariness is more than just habit. The ache in his bones. That clutch of unease around his heart, as though there’s something he’s overlooked. The way the buildings of the town swim a little, even now that he’s closer, and his eyes can’t quite settle on them.

Soon over the beat of his horse’s hooves comes the dull tock of an ax chopping wood, and the hollow barks of a bored dog. If he’s learned anything, it’s that a man can tell a thing or two about a town by looping around its ugly backside where outhouses stand like sentries, past warped back steps and unpainted walls, past smoldering heaps of trash with smoke twitching from them and dogs sniffing stains on the earth. Here now across the river is a stout woman splitting wood, the slick crack of her ax coming a moment after she raises it because Matthis is just far enough away, an unsettling sensation like time’s come loose. Here’s a white dog lifting its leg, and its piss feathering out through the sunlight onto a clump of weeds. And here is a man in a stained apron upending a pan of scraps into a pigpen, and his head turns just enough for Matthis to know he has seen him, but a moment later the man’s shaking the pan and slouching off to the dark mouth of a doorway.

Now Matthis is close enough to hear the muttering of the river, to catch the green fuzz of grass along its edge, then his horse is slowing. At the bank the horse dances back until Matthis urges him into the sudden shock of the water, and he lays a hand on the horse’s neck and leans down to murmur, “Once it’s up to your balls it don’t get no worse, so you get going now, fella,” and he keeps muttering as he digs his heels into the horse’s belly, and the horse feels its way into the water, plunging into it and soaking Matthis right up past his knees, and god it’s cold.

The man that Matthis has come to kill is called Flyte. He is a cardsharp, a man who has cheated other men out of hundreds of dollars, thousands maybe, a man who is traveling with another man’s wife and whose existence is an affront to mankind, especially to Henry Pearsall, that wife’s husband, who is paying half up front and half upon completion to have Flyte wiped from the face of the earth.

There is always a reason for wiping such men from the face of the earth. Such men are a blight. Or a plague. Or a canker. Such men are slanderous or larcenous, or have corrupted other men’s wives or sisters, daughters or sons. Such men are beyond the attention of the law in places where the sheriff is a lone man with his own idea of what the law should be. Not that it matters to Matthis what the sheriff’s ideas are, except when that sheriff is an overly righteous man who aims to apply the letter of the law rather than the general spirit in which it is meant. But sheriffs of that kind don’t last long out here. It’s become Matthis’s habit not to notice lawmen, and in turn they look right through him — to a dog scratching its ear in the middle of the street, or a whore on the boardwalk scraping muck from her boot. In this way a certain moral code is applied: men who are a blight on a town are removed, and if a man like Matthis should make his living by it, what does it matter?

With a great splashing Matthis’s horse heaves itself out of the river and stands splay-legged, shedding water onto the dirt. Just a few yards away a fence is staked around a handful of wooden crosses driven into lumpy ground baked hard by the sun.

Not a town where there’s much dying, then, likely because much of the dying is out in the hills, where miners are buried in rock falls and cave-ins, and Matthis settles his hat more firmly on his head. From the shade of its brim he takes in the ragged edge of town. A bathhouse. A livery. A few cabins, their wood already cracked by the sun, and around them a scatter of chickens pecking at the dirt. From the doorway of one cabin an old guy stares out. Matthis touches his hat to him as he passes, and he makes a show of it so that his eyes can linger, just in case, watching that old man’s expression, and his hands, until he rounds the corner into the main street.

From here he can see clear through to where the street becomes the road south. There isn’t much to this town after all, and yet it’s a town like so many he’s seen. Matthis’s horse shakes his head, then comes the raw crunch of his teeth on the bit. He can smell the feed in the livery across the street and he shakes his head again, harder. Not much forage in the hills, and now that they’re in town he expects to be fed. It might be hours until Matthis finds Flyte, and hours more until he can corner him somewhere private enough to shoot him without a whole bunch of ballyhoo, so Matthis lets the reins go slack and the horse turns toward the broad doorway of the livery.

Just inside the entrance the horse halts. It’s late afternoon and Matthis has been in the saddle since sunup, except to relieve himself midmorning. In the sudden gloom he lifts one leg, stiff as an old dog, and lets himself slide to the ground. Except the floor’s uneven, or he didn’t bend his legs enough because his wet pants are clinging to them, and he lands hard and staggers against his own goddamn horse. The horse spooks and rears up so that Matthis, yanking on the reins, is pulled up on his toes and has to use his whole weight to haul the horse’s head down to his chest and hold it there. Its breath comes hot through his shirt while behind his ribs his heart crashes about.

If the stable boy noticed he doesn’t say a thing. He drifts out of the shadows, a hollow-chested kid with orange hair who nods when Matthis says to feed his horse good and rub him down, and deftly snatches the coin Matthis tosses him out of the air. A moment later the boy’s turning away and taking the horse with him, then Matthis is back in the sunlight. From out of nowhere a breeze has started up. It swirls dirt along the street, sending it hissing against Matthis’s wet pants, slamming a door hard against its hinges not far away, and that push of wind, that sudden sense of movement when the few men Matthis can see are leaning against walls or propped against posts — it doesn’t feel right. Nor does being on foot after days high up on his horse, and he wipes a hand across his face just for the feel of it, then sets off down the street.

From the shadow of the buildings watch grim-faced men, but as he passes not one of them moves, nothing moves except for that wind licking up dust. Matthis cocks his head to one side then the other so these men know he’s watching them back. A flash of black from a doorway — Matthis’s arm stiffens, his fingers curl to the shape of his gun just an inch from his holster. A man hurrying into the street. A prim little man in a stiff collar, the sleeves of his coat worn to a sheen, his pants slack and creased around his boots as though they once belonged to a taller man, and he hasn’t even noticed Matthis just a few yards away. The man’s squinting against the dust and the sun, and across the street he goes, arms pumping, eyes on the gleaming windows of the bank.

Matthis watches him, stretching his hand, fiddling his fingers like he’s letting go of something. That man is not Flyte. Flyte dresses fancy but wears a dark low-crown hat, a thick black mustache, and has a squint in his left eye. Matthis wasn’t given a description of Henry Pearsall’s missing wife, but then, it’s not her he’s been sent after. He’s sure to see her, all right. After he’s shot Flyte she’ll come hurrying down the stairs or rushing out through a doorway. She’ll wail and grieve, she might even chase after him — some women do — and beg him to kill her too, because now she’s so on her own, and he’ll pull himself away and walk off slow and steady to his horse, then swing himself into the saddle like a man who can’t concern himself with such matters.

Still, it’s a rotten business, leaving a woman with a man to bury and no resource. Sometimes he’s wondered what they do — do they go back to their homes? Would a man like Henry Pearsall take back the wife who shamed him? Surely this whole business is about revenge and nothing more, about a man like Henry Pearsall having the money to pay for that revenge to be exacted on his behalf, revenge on a man for stealing his wife, and revenge on his wife for allowing herself to be stolen.

Sooner or later a man like Flyte would abandon Pearsall’s wife anyway. Matthis knows this to be true, and he lets himself glance over to where that prim man in his worn coat is slipping away into the bank. It is not as though Matthis expected to see Flyte in the street within minutes of arriving in town, though such things have happened. No, up ahead there’s the unmistakable frontage of a hotel, and just beyond it a saloon. A man like Flyte might still be asleep, even at this time of day. He might be busy with a plate of steak and potatoes, or already set up in the saloon with whiskey and cards. Henry Pearsall couldn’t tell him what kind of man Flyte is, though the fact that Flyte is here in a sprung-up town like Williamsville says a lot: he’s not a top-of-his-game cardsharp, and his fancy clothes might be the only fancy thing about him.

It could be that Flyte is expecting Henry Pearsall to come after him, or one of the many other men he’s cheated, but not a man like Matthis — a man bearing him no grudge, a man he does not even recognize. In the sliver of a second between Flyte seeing Matthis raising his gun and the bullet hitting him in the chest he’ll understand that this stranger has come to shoot him dead, and his face will register shock at the world for having caught him out.

The wind’s blowing harder now and sending up ghostly waves of dust that spin and spin. Matthis ducks his head and clamps one hand to his hat. He turns his back too, so when the wind settles a little he’s looking past his own shadow laid out before him, out beyond the north end of town where great dirty clouds have piled up above the hills. If Flyte can’t be found, or he can’t get Flyte on his own by evening, he might be trapped here by the river swelling with storm water, and he walks a little faster now, right past the hotel to the saloon.

As soon as he’s through the doors, the used-up reek of the place is all around him. Cheap tobacco, spilled liquor, old grease, the smell of men who haven’t washed in a month. The rumble of voices tells him, even before his eyes have got used to the dimness, that the place is at least half full. A few faces glance toward him and he looks back, not at them exactly but through them so that no man feels the weight of his gaze as he takes in the whole room, never mind that he’s already spotted the man who must be Flyte at a table over by the stairs. The dark low-crown hat, the mustache like a smudge of soot, the squint that looks like he’s closed his left eye against the smoke from his cigar. Then Matthis is heading to the bar as though the only thing on his mind is a drink.

He sets his elbows on the counter and one boot on the foot rail. He orders a whiskey, and only as the man pours does he let his eyes drift up to the mirror behind the bar. From under the brim of a filthy hat a man’s watching him, his hair lank and gray and his face so old it looks rendered down to the bones. His heart squeezes tight like a fist and his hand drops for his gun, and only when the old man mirrors him — his face hard, his hand dropping out of sight — does Matthis understand he’s looking at himself. The surprise of it burns through him, a scorching of nerves that feels familiar, as though he has been taken unawares by himself before, and he looks away to the corner of the glass to find Flyte.

Flyte’s with three other men, glasses in front of them. One man’s skimming cards to the others from the deck in his hand with surprising speed and grace. The men are miners, foreheads and noses burned brown by the sun, chins smooth and pale where they’ve just had their beards shaved off. Two of them are hunched forward with their arms on the table and their hands close to their money, but Flyte’s sitting back, that cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth and one arm over the back of his chair as though he’s settling in to tell a story.

Already Matthis has looked away. There’s the barman lifting the bottle from his glass and a little whiskey slopping onto the counter, there’s the glass being pushed toward him and the whiskey trembling and spilling some more, and Matthis searches his pocket for a couple of coins and drops them into the barman’s hand. He picks up the glass. The spilled liquor is a slippery coolness under his fingers, and as he lifts his head to empty the whiskey into his mouth, he finds Flyte in the mirror once more.

Flyte is on his feet. He’s stepping away from the table, and he stumbles a little and has to steady himself against his chair. Between the miners flickers a self-satisfied look, and Matthis catches the sharp scent of trouble rolling in, of a setup, because a man like Flyte doesn’t let himself get that drunk in the afternoon, not during a card game with a bunch of miners, not unless he’s an utter fool, and it was no fool who cheated Henry Pearsall out of a substantial sum and took off with his wife.

From the depths of the saloon comes a wink of light as a door opens. Flyte’s letting himself out a back way. Matthis stiffens: Was Flyte expecting him? Is he slipping away? But a man like Flyte would know better than to take off out back by himself. No, Matthis realizes, by an incredible stroke of luck, Flyte’s gone to relieve himself, right now, out behind the saloon, and moving nice and slow he tilts up his glass a second time and waits for the last drops to slide onto his tongue before he follows.

Out behind the saloon the wind’s fierce now. Matthis has to grab his hat as it tips away, and the world’s bleary with dust. A few yards off is an outhouse, a lopsided thing with a door flapping against its frame, but Flyte’s relieving himself nearby on a pile of broken crates, legs wide, his back to Matthis. The air snaps. On a clothesline sheets are flapping in the wind, lifting and billowing and folding back on themselves, and from beneath them an overturned pail comes spinning and clanging across the dirt. Flyte doesn’t turn around. Why would he? So Matthis waits, ready, and though Flyte has a gun in his holster — a cheap thing that probably hasn’t seen much use — he doesn’t take aim, not while the man’s back is turned.

The wind spits dust into Matthis’s eyes and he blinks it away. A woman’s thin voice calls out, “The wind’s gonna bring ’em down,” and maybe she’s nearby, or maybe her words have been carried on the wind, but there’s Flyte buttoning himself up and turning back to the saloon, and when he catches sight of Matthis his face goes flat. He’s not dressed so fancy after all. His pants look worn, and on his shirtfront, half hidden by his jacket, is a yellow mark where someone’s been careless with an iron. Out here in the glare of afternoon he looks younger too, his eyes blurred with drink, and that’s the thought arcing across Matthis’s mind as his hand dips for his gun and brings it up so fast that Flyte hasn’t moved when the bullet hits him right where his shirt’s been scorched.

Flyte stands there with his mouth open, then all in one go he topples to the ground as though the wind’s blown him over, and his hat goes rolling out toward those crates still wet with his piss. A few tremors shake him, then his body goes slack and Matthis, gun holstered, head down against the wind, walks over to him. All he needs is something small — a cigar case, a ring, something personal of Flyte’s to take back to Pearsall. He crouches and tugs at a watch chain, then he cradles the watch in his palm. It’s still warm. A raindrop shatters against it, and another. He springs the cover open: Paul H. Dewar. What man is this, Matthis wonders, who carries another man’s watch in his pocket, a watch he must have won in a game and wears as though it’s his?

But what does it matter? Flyte is dead.

The rain’s pocking the dirt and the mineral smell of it’s suddenly everywhere. Matthis heaves himself to his feet and slips the watch into his pocket. Just beyond where Flyte lies the sheets are still lifting and flapping, only now there’s a gap like a tooth knocked loose where one’s missing. In its place stands the stout woman who’d been chopping wood, the sheet bundled over her arm. Her face has gone stark. Her mouth opens and she wails, “Paulie! Paulie!” then she’s running toward Matthis crying, “What you have to go and do that for?” and Matthis raises his gun slowly so she’ll see it, and when she keeps coming he fires a single shot that stops her dead.

A thrashing rain is falling now, blurring everything. Matthis slips around the side of the saloon, but the street is not how he remembers it. It is longer, and wider, and though he slogs through mud and puddles, the livery’s nowhere to be found, and he wonders if this is still Williamsville or if this is some other town and Williamsville was where he shot Flyte a month ago, for he remembers a man in a dark low-crown hat who seemed to have a squint, and a woman raging after him as he walked away and how he had to stop her. He slows and looks over his shoulder. Through the downpour the street’s filling with the dim shapes of men, and he pulls out his gun and hurries on, but where the livery should be is the cemetery, and the men are closing in.

There’s nothing for it but to take off through the graves. Mud sucks at his boots and he loses his footing and falls, nearly drops his gun, then he hauls himself up and lurches away between the crosses, slipping and stumbling through the blinding rain, then there, suddenly, is the river right before him, only now it’s a torrent raging past.

From the way Matthis pushes his hat hard down onto his head, it’s like he means to swim it. Instead he turns to the men coming after him, dozens of them swarming across the cemetery, and he wipes the rain from his face to see more clearly. Among them there’s a man in a dark low-crown hat, and Matthis fires at him and fires again, though he’s certain he’s already killed him, that in fact he killed him only a few minutes ago behind the saloon.

He is still puzzling over this when he’s shoved hard in the chest. He stares down in wonder at the blood blooming on his shirt, and what a curious sensation it is to hear the air cracking apart all around him while he floats, weightless, away from it all. The men are gone, and the rain is gone, and as he’s swallowed up by a drenching cold he thinks he should have stayed and fought. There was a man he was supposed to kill, but when he tries to catch hold of the gossamer memory of who that man was, it’s dissolved to nothing. What does it matter? His hands are empty, and his thoughts so thrown apart by a furious roaring that he stops trying to remember, and what a relief it is to stop at last and let himself be borne away.