The Courting Of Mallory, Part 1: The Letter

Mallory & Kell

Mallory receives an invitation from homely Miz Allie. He doesn't want to go out with her, but he doesn't want to hurt her feelings, either. What will he do? What can he do?

The Courting of Mallory 

Part 1: The Letter

by Michael Sutch

Mallory dithered.
    He gathered his writing implements, quill pen, ink pot, parchment paper and spread them out over the rickety old table that occupied one end of the bunk house. Then he sat, picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink and stared at the paper. He put the quill down, angled the paper a little more to his liking and picked up the pen again. After another moment of contemplation he noticed the tip of the quill was split. He drew the knife from his boot sheath and used it to whittle the quill to a sharper point. Then he dipped the quill in the ink once more and resumed staring at the parchment.
    Kell, watching this game of indecision from where he sat on his bunk smoking a cigaret, glanced over at Sandy McNeal and jerked his head toward Mallory.  "I got a silver dollar says old Mallory won't be able to finish that 'No Thank You' letter to Miz Allie," he whispered.
    "That who his letter was from this morning? Miz Allie?" Sandy's whisper was a little hoarse from trying to control an outright bray of laughter.
    Kell's grin was wickedly wide. "Yep. The very mistress of homely, herself."
    "What'd she want?" Sandy gasped.
    "Ain't sayin' until you take my bet."
    Young Sandy levered his six foot four inch frame off his bunk high enough to peer through the blue smoke over Kell's head at Mallory. "All he has to do is say no thank you?"
    "Yep."
    "Ok, you're on. See, he's writin' already. Now, what did she want?"
    Mallory, hunched over the parchment, was was writing with a slow and careful hand. Abruptly he crossed out what he had written, folded the paper neatly and reached out to place it in the nearby box of kindling for the wood-burning stove. Then he carefully drew forth another piece of paper and maneuvered it to the precise angle he needed for writing.
    Kell sucked in a lung full of smoke and blew it toward the cobwebbed rafters of the bunkhouse. He thought Sandy's face was a trifle whiter that it had been a moment before. No doubt he was seeing that silver dollar sprout wings to fly away. The thought made him happy.
    "Come on! What'd she say?" Sandy hissed at him.
    "She asked him to go out ridin' with her come Saturday afternoon in her new rig."
    After a moment of sheer disbelief, Sandy's deep-throated laughter bubbled loudly to the surface. "No," he said, "tell me it ain't so." At Kell's solemn nod, he doubled up, buried his head in his pillow and howled.
    "What do you two find so funny?" Mallory snapped.
    Kell looked at Mallory in feigned surprise. "Why I was just telling young Sandy here one of the more ridiculous facts of life. He found it somewhat amusing too."
    Mallory stood and placed the quill in its inkwell. "I can't do this," he said. "I should ride into town tomorrow and tell her I can't go, face to face."
    Kell stood and scratched his shaggy locks. "You ain't going to write that letter?"
    "No."
    Kell held his hand out to Sandy. With a sour expression the kid dug a silver dollar from his jeans pocket and slapped it in Kell's palm.
    "I knew it!" Mallory said, disgust making his moustache quiver.
    "It would be a bad idea to go see her face to face, Mallory," Kell said.
    "What do you mean?"
    "You'd get to feeling all sorry for her and you'd end up agreeing to go with her."
    "Well, I can't write this letter either. It would hurt her feelings too."
    "You remember I told you she'd get the wrong idea, you bein' so friendly all the time."
    "I was just trying to be nice. Maybe I'll just ignore the whole thing and not do anything."
    "For pity's sake, Mal," Kell said. "This ain't that hard." He picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink pot and wrote a big 'No" on the page. Then he scrawled a totally impassable imitation of Mallory's precise signature. "See? All done."
    "I can't send that!"
    "Better that than nothing. It would really hurt her feelings if she thought you were going to go and you never showed."
    Mallory grimaced, reached for the paper, then shook his head. "No, I can't."
    "I'll bet you another dollar, Sandy, that Mal will end up not doin' nothin and makin' the whole thing worse."
    Mallory shuddered. "Ok!" He folded the terse letter into an envelope and neatly addressed it to Allie Smith. "Will you deliver it for me?"
    "Not me!" Kell said.
    "I will, Mallory," Sandy said, "for a silver dollar."
    Mallory closed his eyes. Then he took a silver dollar from his pocket and flipped it to the kid.

(c) 2014 by Michael Sutch

Nightwolf's Vengeance

Photo by John Glenn

Will Hino, the Iroquois god of thunder, help Nightwolf in his quest for revenge against the Viking raiders? 

Nightwolf's Vengeance

  by Michael Sutch

    Their trail was clear. They had made no attempt to hide it, thinking no one would follow.

    Sunlight dripped through the leaves of the canopied forest and spattered the trail with splotches of golden light. Here and there small creatures rustled the underbrush or flitted from tree to tree. The air was moist and cool, smelling freshly of rain. Nightwolf moved noiselessly between the trees, hardly marked by the animals and birds in his path, let alone by human eye or ear. His own senses were finely focused, searching for any movement, any sound, any odor that was foreign to this place.
    He stalked the wind which blew lightly from the west. And it was the wind that brought him the first faint trace; the stink of unwashed body. He halted then and crouched with head bowed and eyes closed, listening. There was a whisper of laughter far ahead and a high voice raised in a protest that was cut short with the dull sound of flesh hitting flesh. He growled low in his throat, though it was more a vibration than a noise. He wanted to run, then, but caution held him. The voices were far away, but the stink was near.
    He eased forward, breathing deeply. The smell came from ahead, to the right of the trail. There should have been noise as well; the rasp of breath, the impatient stirring of tension or boredom, the unguarded scratching of an itch or a smothered cough. These men were not woodsmen. They made constant noise even though they thought themselves silent. Except here, there actually was silence. When he reached the place where the man was hidden, he saw why. His blond hair was matted with blood. He was unconscious, though still breathing. Nightwolf drew his knife and put an end to that.
    He ran then, heedless of the branches whipping his face and body. The way led down a bank and across a slow moving stream whose water was murky with churned mud.  Several large rocks had been turned by the passage of the men, leaving their clean, bright faces up.  He stopped before crossing to study the ground and counted six sets of prints; the two girls and four others. Then he moved again, three steps on the surface of flat, friendly stones and he was over. He passed through a fringe of willows and up the bank on the other side.
    The forest gave back, opening into a large glade. The grass and the blue and red and yellow wild flowers were still dewy with the moisture of a retreating bank of fog. The low-lying cloud swathed the far end of the glade like a gray blanket, but overhead in the bright sunlight and the bright blue sky was the thunder god Hino's consort Rainbow. Thunder growled like drums from the forest still shrouded in cloud as if announcing the presence of the god. Nightwolf smiled at the omen.
    Ahead, just visible in the embrace of the fog were struggling figures. The two girls fought with their strange, outland captors. The sobs and cries of the girls were mixed with the deep laughter of the men. Keeping to the edge of the forest, Nightwolf eased silently forward. He drew the arrow he had recovered, one of the strangers' own, that has missed him in the battle at his village.  The arrow had a sharp, wicked metal arrow head.  He notched it to the taut bowstring.
    He halted when he was within a hundred paces of the melee. The strangers were not aware of him as they were too engrossed in their game of stripping the girls. They were large men, unlike any he had seen before, with hair like gold and eyes the blue of the wild flowers. Their skin was pale white. They wore small round hats that gleamed like silver in the sun and had horns twisting to either side. Their clothes were baggy cloth in shades of brown and they wore leather boots that came high to mid-calf. Each carried a round metal bossed shield and either an axe of bright metal or a long metal tipped spear.
     He raised the bow and arrow as offering to the spirit of the thunder god. "Hear me Hino! Bless my arrows. Let them strike the evil men as your arrows of fire strike all who do evil!"
    A low growl of thunder answered him and he shrieked a defiant war cry. The outlanders turned as one man, the girls abruptly forgotten at their feet. When thunder again rumbled off the distant cloud-covered hills the strangers raised their own weapons to the sky and shouted with fierce joy. All four voices spoke the same name in an exultant pean, "Asa Thor!"
    Nightwolf guessed they too worshipped the god of thunder. He did not understand how men capable of doing the evil things they had wrought among the people could expect Hino to answer their call, but it didn't matter. His arrows would be the thunder god's justice and, incidentally, his own vengeance. He prayed that he was worthy and that it would be so.
    Two of the men with hairy faces took little running hops toward him and threw their spears. Nightwolf was surprised at their accuracy. He had to step aside and duck down at the same time to avoid being skewered. When he rose to his feet again he saw that all four were charging toward him. He raised the bow, pulled the arrow to his cheek.
    "Let my arrow strike as yours would, Hino," he said, and released the shaft at the leading outlander.
    The arrow streaked true and as it did so, lightning flashed from the clear sky and followed in the arrow's path, only faster, until at the last moment it seemed that the arrow flared with flames. Then the lightning forked in four directions and struck each of the outlanders simultaneously. The awful crack of the bolt knocked Nightwolf down and left his ears ringing in the crashing thunder.
   It took long moments before fear left him. Then he sat up and stared uncertainly around. The white men were dead. Their golden hair was smoking and blackened beneath their metal hats. He raised his voice in a song of thanks to Hino. At least, he thought he did. He could hear nothing. When he closed his eyes all he saw was a streak of white light. He shook with dread at the power of the god of thunder.
    Sometime later he felt the hands of the girls urging him to his feet. He opened his eyes and let them help him walk, one on each side, their shoulders offering support to his arms. Now they could return home to the cries of the injured and to the wailing for the dead. But they could make that walk without shame.

(c) 2014 by Michael Sutch

The Silver Spurs

Mallory & Kell

Just a little bit of humor, again set in the old west.  There is more to come from Mal And Kell.

The Silver Spurs

by Michael Sutch

 "No one stole your spurs, Kell. It's just you can't find them in all this mess!"
    Mallory was looking askance at his partner's kit spread out over Kell's bunk and scattered half around the bunkhouse. Kell grunted, digging further into his trunk and throwing an old pair of chaps on the floor.
    "I tell you," Kell grumbled, "one of the boys stole my new spurs. They was right here on top of everything. Now they ain't."
    Mallory looked over Kell's shoulder and into the dark depths of the trunk. "I don't see how you can tell where anything is. It's like a rat's nest in there."
    Kell slammed the top of the trunk shut and stood glaring at Mallory. "Damn it, Mal! Just 'cause I'm not a prissy old woman like you that keeps everything in its own special place don't mean I don't know where things are. If all you are going to do is stand around and comment on the state of my kit, then git out of here! I don't need you."
    "Hey," Mallory said, smoothing his mustache. "I don't mean anything, it's just...Well, never mind. If they aren't here, they arent' here. Who do you think took them?"
    "I don't know," Kell said, stuffing wrinkled shirts, trousers, the aforementioned chaps back into the trunk in haphazard fashion, followed quickly by a sewing kit, shaving gear, and a leather tobacco pouch. "But I'm betting if we head into town and stop into Kott's Merchandise, we'll find them fixed to the wall behind his counter, all polished up and gleaming like the silver he paid for them. And he'll tell us just who it was sold them to him too."
    Mallory nodded. "Sounds like an idea. I'll go saddle up."
    Kell grabbed his old stetson off the pillow of his bunk and slammed it down on the uncombed mop of his thick red hair. As he passed the bunk, he accidentally kicked it. There came a clinking sound from beneath one of the wadded up blankets. Both men stopped. Mallory, by the door, turned around, looking at the bunk. Kell pulled the blankets aside and there, resting on the yellow sheets, were two silver spurs.
    Mallory grinned.
    "Oh, shut up!" Kell said.
    "I didn't say nothing," Mallory answered, but his grin got bigger.

(c) 2014 by Michael Sutch

The Tic-Tac-Toe Murder

A complete murder mystery in less than a 1000 words. 

The Tic-Tac-Toe Murder

By Michael Sutch

    She might have been quite lovely before. A dark haired, blue-eyed college coed. Now, sightless eyes circled with violet lipstick, stared at the ceiling. The circles around her eyes were like the Os in a tic-tac-toe game, especially when you considered the violet X high on her pallid forehead, another between her eyes and a third slashed over her lips. They were all marked through with a razor cut that left a bright red line down the center of her face, a razor cut that intersected with the one that had opened her throat. No, she was not pretty now.
    I stood up and watched while two detectives handcuffed the unresisting boy, read him his rights and led him away. He had stopped sobbing, but had yet to say anything coherent. He had been found, straight razor in hand, cradling the dead girl in his arms, her blood soaking his pants and tee shirt.
    "Looks pretty straight forward," Brownie said. He knelt, careful not to get her blood on his pants leg, and aimed the camera. The flash went off. I blinked away little yellow lights.
    "You think so?"
    "Sure, happens all the time. She cut him out for some other guy and he couldn't take it."
    "So why'd he play tic-tac-toe on her face?"
    "Weird, ain't it? You wouldn't think a guy would do that to his girlfriend's face, even if he was pissed at her."
    I nodded and looked around the room. There were two beds, two desks, two chairs. One wall consisted of brick and board bookcases pretty well filled with college texts and paperback books. Without straining I could see three papers covered with old tic-tac-toe games. Also there was a fancy wooden board with gold Xs and Os on one of the desks.
    "But a guy crazy in love is like to do anything, don't you think?" Brownie said. "Come on, what do you think of my theory?"
    "Brownie, it's a good thing your a photographer and not a detective."
    He grinned. "Yeah?"
     In the hallway outside I could see the white, pensive face of another coed. I reached for my glasses in my shirt pocket. They weren't there. I found them on top of my head in their usual place, the place I always unconsciously put them. Sighing, I left them perched there, went to the door, beckoned the girl over. She came, moving silkily in jeans so tight I was surprised she could move at all.
    "You are?"
    "Janny Waithe."
    "You're her..."
    "Mary Jo's..."
    "...roommate?"
    "Yes, sir." Blond curls jangled at her nod.
    "You found them, didn't you?"
    "Yes." She frowned, gray eyes flecked with pain, then looked down.
    "Why did he do it, do you think?"
    "I don't know. It's crazy."
    "She dating some other guy?"
    "Maybe. Mary Jo liked a lot of guys."
    I picked up the Tic-Tac-Toe board from the desk. "This yours?" I asked.
    "Yes. I like board games."
    "Did Mary Jo play Tic-Tac-Toe with you?"
    "Sometimes, when things were slow."
    "But you won most of the time?"
    "Not really. Most Tic-Tac-Toe games end in a draw, you know."
    "Seems odd," I said, "for a boy to cut up the face of the girl he loves that way. But a rival, now, that might make sense."
    She shrugged.
    "Mary Jo stole him from you, didn't she?"
    Janny didn't answer, but there might have been the hint of a smile on those violet lips.
    "And the lipstick, it's yours, too."
    "Yes."
    "Where did he get it?"
    "I must have left it lying around."
    "Really, it would be a kind of Tic-Tac-Toe game in its own right, wouldn't it Janny? X Mary Jo for stealing your boyfriend, X the boyfriend for deserting you, and X the police for being stupid. Tic-Tac-Toe."
    "Is that your case?" she asked. Her gray eyes were wide with surprise.
    "Well, no. There is the blood on your jeans."
    "I didn't know what had happened when I first came in. I got down on my knees to see what was wrong."
    "That's when you gave him the straight razor, wasn't it? He was already in shock from seeing Mary Jo and when he got down to hold her you handed it to him. He never even noticed, did he?"
    "Why are you saying this?"
    "It's mostly because of the lipstick." I said.
    "What do you mean?"
    "I imagine there will be fingerprints on the case; yours of course, but also his if he used it to mark her face."
    "So?"
    "Where is it, Janny?"
    She looked around, confused. "He must of dropped it here somewhere."
    I put my hand up and felt my glasses there on top of my head. "It's funny, isn't it, how when you're in the habit of doing something, that even when you decide to do it a different way, your mind will just do what it's in the habit of doing and you won't even remember doing it?"
    "What are you talking about?"
    "You must have intended to give him the lipstick too. But things got kind of hectic, I imagine."
    "I don't know what you are talking about."
    "Where do you normally carry your lipstick, Janny?"
    Suddenly she looked frightened. Her hand moved toward her jeans pocket. Then she stopped, sensing a trick.
    "Those are awfully tight jeans. I can see the lipstick right there in your pocket where you put it. Tic-Tac-Toe, kid."

(c) 2006 by Michael Sutch

Barren Thoughts

Here is a piece of micro-fiction from late 2006. 

This is a story of the old west, set in New Mexico.

Barren Thoughts

by Michael Sutch

"I won't go," she said, with that air of finality that he recognized as unequivocal.
    Nevertheless, he had to try. It was too important to let go.
    "Darling," he began.
    "Don't try to sweet talk me, it won't work, Jeremiah."
    Her head was tilted back, her long, uncombed brown hair falling back behind her rigid shoulders. Her smooth white chin was thrust defiantly forward and her eyebrows arched in challenge over her deep green eyes. Those eyes were her best feature, dark and expressive, as changeable as quicksilver, all alone they made her a striking looking woman. It was her eyes he had fallen in love with, once, long ago.
    "All right, Loretta, all I ask is that you listen to me fairly."
    "When have I ever failed to listen to your pitiful maunderings?"
    He ignored this thrust as he ignored so much from her. Responding to it would only bring worse. "We must take the stage to Santa Fe. Both of us. They won't let us adopt the boy unless we can show we would be a good family, a good mother and father."
    "I would be a good mother!" she said, her voice like iron grating on iron. "Are you saying I wouldn't?"
    "Of course not. But they must make that judgement for themselves and to do that they want to see us together."
    For a moment she stared at him, then she turned away abruptly. When she spoke her voice was low, though still metallic. "It's my fault."
    He froze, for this was a path he did not want to travel. She rarely came back from this thought for days. Vainly he searched for something to say that would keep her with him. The only thing he could think of, he was afraid to say. But now he had no choice.
    "No," he said softly. "It may be my fault." It was something he had never said before. He had thought it, but never said it, had always let her assume the blame.
    "What?" Her voice had a tremor in it he hadn't heard in years.
    "Loretta, love, it could be my fault, you know. There's no way to tell."
    She turned back to him, eyes bright with green fire. Before she could speak he placed a finger on her lips.
    "It doesn't matter," he said, "which...But someday when we are old, we will need a son to help with the ranch, a son to leave our life's work to. Right now, this seems the only way."
    "I don't want someone else's baby, Jeremiah." Her arms rose against him, and her voice as well. "I want my own baby. Just...my own."
    "I know." He pulled her to him and was surprised when she didn't resist. He felt her hot tears streaking his dusty forearms. "The doctor, there in Santa Fe, said sometimes, in a case like ours, after a baby is adopted, the couple conceives. Like it opens a gate."
    She pushed back to look at him in surprise. Her eyes were glittering emeralds. "Truly?"
    "It's what he said."
    Her face was still turned toward his, but those eyes he loved were now unfocused. She was somewhere else.
    He held his breath.
    "Then I'll go," she said.

(c) 2006 by Michael Sutch

Introduction

Hi, my name is Mike Sutch and I'm a writer of fiction (yeah, one of those).

I have written quite a lot of fiction at various points in my life.  At other times, including one stretch of over twenty years, I wrote nothing at all. Hence the intermittent part of the blog title.  I have written two novels, dozens of short stories and novelettes (a couple published in science fiction magazines), and a lot of unfinished stories, vignettes, and micro-fiction.

I intend to publish some of the stories, vignettes and micro-fiction on this blog. The schedule will be irregular but roughly weekly.

If you like reading or writing and want to start a dialogue, I would love to hear from you.  Write to me at: mike dot sutch at gmail dot com.

I hope you enjoy my stories.