Amy Cross - The Purchase

“There’s only one time that Angelica Graft properly looked at me for any length of time,” Munver continued a while later, as he sat cross-legged on the floor and scooped more beans into his mouth, “but I’m sure she at least glanced at me a few other times. She definitely knows that I exist.”

“Perhaps she smelled you,” Garrett muttered testily, stirring his bowl of beans and waiting for a scrap of appetite to return. Finally he forced himself to take a spoonful of beans into his mouth.

“One morning I was sitting by the side of the road,” Munver explained, “and I saw Angelica coming my way with several ladies in her company. Why, I got to my feet and brushed myself down, and I bowed most humbly as they all walked past. Ladies like that, you know. They like a man who—”

Before he could finish, he was shocked to hear a loud, anguished snarl burst from Garrett’s lips, and he watched as his visitor bent forward in the chair as if in great pain.

Not knowing how he should react, Munver merely watched as Garrett remained bent over.

Finally, slowly, Garrett opened his eyes. The pain had been sudden and shocking, and he knew that it could no longer be ignored. He’d already begun to suspect that his body was failing him, but here was the confirmation and now his mind was racing as he tried to work out what he should do next. It was bad luck that, at this awful moment, he found himself stuck alone in a shack with an idiot, but he supposed he’d have to make do with what he’d got. His own comfort mattered not; what mattered was his work.

“Tell me,” he said, his voice tense with pain after the agony of having tried to swallow the beans, “do you by any chance have a pen and some paper?”

“No,” Munver replied, “I do not.”

“Do you have anything to write with and on?”

“No.”

“I thought as much,” Garrett said, and now it was evident that he was still in pain. He was holding the bowl of beans with one hand, but with the other he was touching his belly. “If I should die out here on the road,” he continued, “it is imperative that Mary should receive two messages from me. One to inform her of my great respect for her long service as my wife, and the other to inform Father Briars of the emergency steps he must take to contain the threat of coinless souls.”

Munver stared at him, unsure as to whether or not he’d finished.

“I’m not entirely sure what you mean,” he said finally.

Garrett turned and stared at him for a moment.

“No,” he murmured angrily, “I don’t suppose that you do.”

Munver, not understanding quite what was happening, decide to smile, and then he scooped up some more beans. Sauce was dribbling down his stubbled chin, and after a moment he tried to lick some of it back into his mouth.

“So tell me this, then,” Garrett continued. “If I were to give you two messages, and if I were to impress their inestimable importance upon your person, would you be capable of taking those messages to the people I described?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Munver replied.

“Could you deliver two messages for me?” Garrett snapped. “Reliably, and in good time?”

“I don’t see why not,” Munver said, “but there’s no-one around here to deliver a message to.”

“If they were around here,” Garrett sighed, “I could deliver the messages myself. I mean that you must go on a journey, on my behalf.”

“I wouldn’t get far in this bad weather. It’d be suicide.”

“You’d have to wait, then. And memorize the messages, along with the details of the intended recipients. Then, when the weather cleared, you’d have to follow my precise instructions and take those messages without further delay to two specific addresses. Upon your arrival, you’d have to…”

His voice trailed off as he stared at Munver’s confused expression, and in that moment he realized that this particular plan had no hope of success.

“Never mind,” he muttered. “I shall not need you to deliver any such messages. I shall find the strength in myself to continue my journey, come morning. The Lord shall be with me, I am sure. He shall prop up my weary frame and drive me onward. I shall complete my work for him.”

“Well…” Munver thought for a moment. “That’ll be nice.”

He looked back down at his bowl of food, but already in the back of his mind his thoughts were consumed by the gold coin he’d taken from the back of the cart. He knew he couldn’t just blurt all his questions out, but he desperately wanted to know just how much the coin was worth. Already, a plan was forming in his mind. Come morning, he’d assess the weather. As soon as the storm cleared sufficiently, he’d strike out from the cabin and head to the nearest town and sell the coin, and then his days as a prospector would be over. He could go home, show off his newfound wealth, and secure the lust of Angelica Graft.

Lost in these thoughts, he spent several minutes trapped in a kind of trance, until finally he stirred and looked back over at Garrett.

For a moment, Garrett seemed to have fallen back asleep, but then his eyes flickered open. He certainly appeared to be struggling in his attempts to stay awake, and Munver preferred not to disturb him. After almost a full minute, however, the older man’s eyes opened properly again and he seemed – for now – to have won his battle with sleep.

“Why do you stare at me like that?” Garrett asked.

“I wasn’t staring,” Munver replied, forcing himself to look down at the bowl and scoop up the last of his beans. “I don’t know what I was doing. Daydreaming, I suppose.”

“The heat from this fire is perhaps making me drowsy,” Garrett said. “I feel almost as if I shall melt right here in the chair. Perhaps the cold would do me better, to wake me up.”

“There’ll be plenty of cold soon,” Munver pointed out. “If I were you, I’d enjoy the fire and—”

Suddenly he froze for a moment, and his eyes opened wide with a burst of realization.

“Melt,” he whispered.

“What was that?” Garrett asked.

“Melt!” Leaping to his feet, Munver sent his empty bowl flying across the room. “She might have melted by now!”

“What in tarnation are you talking about?” Garrett asked.

“Uh… Nothing.”

Munver looked at the door, then back at Garrett, then at the door again, then once more at Garrett.

“It’s just,” he continued, his mind spinning as he tried to think of an explanation, “I need to go and check something outside, that’s all. It’s real important.”

With that, he hurried to the door.

“What are you doing, man?” Garrett asked impatiently. “There’s nothing out there but snow and wind.”

“I won’t be long,” Munver mumbled, fumbling to get the door open. “Wait right there. You promised before, you have to stay by the fire. Wait there and I’ll be right back. I just have to go and check on the…”

He hesitated, frozen for a moment by the struggle to come up with an explanation.

“Horses,” he managed to say finally.

“Horses?”

“Pigs.”

“What?”

“Rain covering!” Munver blurted out. “I have to go and check on the rain covering!”

In a state of high excitement now, he hurried out into the snow, letting the door swing shut in his wake.

Garrett stared at the door, trying to work out what could possibly have worked his host up into such a ridiculous condition, but then he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes and told himself not to worry. The man was clearly a lunatic, he reasoned, and it would be all too easy to get entirely lost in the task of untangling a lunatic’s plans. Besides, he preferred to be alone right now as he continued to struggle for a little more strength. He knew that despite his growing weakness, he had to fix the cart in the morning and then he had to set back out on the road to resume his journey. For a moment the task felt utterly impossible, but he told himself that somehow he would find the necessary resolve. He would get to where he was going.