Free The Butcher and the Butterfly by Ian Dyer

house.
    The Watchman
looked over, again, shielding his eyes. He could make out the
silhouette of a man hunkered between the court house and a rundown
wagon stop.
    ‘Is there any
water in this old hole?’
    ‘Aye. Bit milky,
but-sokay.’ The silhouette stood up and kicked a stone against the
wall of the court house. ‘It’s a long way down. For some coin I can
save yer arm, mister?’
    Stephen wiped some
sweat from his brow and looked about him; there was no one save the
silhouette. A Watchman did the work himself for fear of losing
face, but out here such things were trivial.
    ‘Be my guest,
Mr…?’ Stephen knew, but best to be sure.
    ‘Tommy. You can
call me Tommy. And yous?’ The silhouette walked forward, the
darkness fading to reveal a tall man, thin and pale with large eyes
and a long face. He scuffed as he walked, the boots he wore no
doubt too big for him. Upon his head was a ragged bush of ginger
hair which seemed to contain more dust than the Wastelands. He had
long gangly arms and on his back he carried a raggedy back pack
with a small shovel looking implement attached.
    Stephen raised his
right hand touching the first finger to his forehead; a simple
salute from simpler times and one that dated back to the ancients
who had once carried his gun.
    ‘My name is
Stephen.’
    Tommy mirrored the
salute and laughed as he did.
    ‘Cowboys do that.
You a cowboy mister?’ He reached the water well and began to lower
the bucket into the blackness. The rope looked almost threadbare
and Stephen thought that if it were to break so too would the
people of Rockfall. The iron workings squealed in pain as Tommy
turned the wheel.
    ‘Not a cowboy, not
as such anyway.’ Stephen grabbed the long shirt he was wearing,
slightly unbuttoned at the bottom as to reveal the gun at his side.
‘I’m a Watchman.’
    Tommy’s eyes grew
wider, swallowing up the world and he almost lost the bucket to the
depths. ‘Well fuck a doodle dumb!’ He exclaimed and clapped his
other hand against his thigh.
    The young man then
began to sing a simple rhyme and it was one that Stephen had heard
many times;
    ‘Riding on horses,
guns at their hip, Rode the hard cowboys releasing the whip. They
are men, not boys; they are strong and untamed. With hearts of
Kings and talents famed. Be warned ye thieves ye rapists and curs,
for a cowboy comes just listen for their spurs. Riding on horses,
guns at their hip. The cowboys will kill ya and death be a
trip!’
    Stephen and Tommy
laughed together until from the water well there came the sound of
the bucket splashing into the water.
    ‘Up she comes!’
Tommy yelled and began to turn the old wheel in the opposite
direction.
    Stephen leant
against the cool rocks of the well. Strange to hear such an old
rhyme out here, especially from a simpleton such as Tommy. He was
intrigued. ‘Where did you hear that, Tommy?’
    ‘Me ma, before she
went up to see pops and sleep the long sleep.’
    Stephen nodded; it
had been his mother that had sung that old song to get him to sleep
and then had sung it to him when he was a bit older so that he
began to understand what his father, what his grandfather did for a
living.
    ‘My mother sang it
to me too. Guess we all had the same dreams at some point.’ Stephen
could tell that Tommy didn’t have a clue what he was talking about;
he had turned his attention back to the task of lifting the bucket
back up from its watery grave. But it was true; as boys didn’t us
all want to be cowboys, lawmen or great warriors, our deeds told
for generations our paintings hung in halls?
    As the sun beat
down on the two men a couple of crows began to circle overhead,
their cries like that of the dying.
    A final scream of
pain from the wells iron works brought the bucket up to the right
height for Stephen to grab hold of it and cup the cool water into
his dry mouth. The water tasted fine, if a little milky in colour
and he offered some to Tommy who drank almost as greedily as
Stephen.