The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

60: Tangled Web

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Wash by Laura Hollingsworth All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

After Wash had gotten past his first reading lesson with the intimidating Miss Iris Sullivan, he realized that if nothing else, he might actually survive this ordeal. He'd done the homework she'd assigned him last time, which consisted of copying a collection of letters and simple pictures and then memorizing them.

He wasn't sure what sorts of homework Rosie and Tommy were giving Luis, but it seemed to involve having him drawing in the dirt beside the corral with sticks and rocks. Aye, well, whatever works for the lad. I'm certainly not one to judge. I want him to win this wager, so I do. He smiled to himself. But I'm not one to make it easy for him, either.

He approached the schoolhouse, not nearly as nervous as he'd been the last time he'd come. Yellow lamplight spilled through the windows in the blue dusk, warm and comforting. This may work out, so it might. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open.

Good evenin' to you, ladies," he said, stepping inside and pulling his hat from his head.

"Mr. Monahan." Miss Sullivan nodded at him, giving him a faint, polite smile. Mrs. Plunkett looked up from her ever-present stack of papers and smiled broadly at him.

"So good to see you again, Mr. Monahan," she said. "It's good to see that you're still taking this seriously."

"Aye, Missus, so I am. Good to see you, too."

And he meant it. The presence of motherly Mrs. Plunkett had a calming effect on him. He knew that sitting alone in the room with a genteel, educated lady, with all his illiteracy and his uncouth upbringing on full display, would have been nigh unbearable. Miss Sullivan always appeared to be so starched and proper every time he saw her, that no matter how well he tried to present himself, no matter how close he shaved, and no matter how long he'd scrubbed his fingernails, he always felt unwashed and uncivilized in her presence. "Good to see you both again, sure." He strode across the room and sat down beside Miss Sullivan. The pistol at his hip clanked loudly against the wooden chair, and Miss Sullivan flinched at the sound. Wash cringed.

"Mr. Monahan," Miss Sullivan said, dubiously glancing down at the firearm. "Are you expecting to be set upon by packs of angry schoolchildren?"

Wash felt his face redden. "No, ma'am," he sighed, feeling foolish. "But it's the truth of it that we've been set upon by some bad sorts. None of us know what to expect, or what might be next for us." He gave her an earnest look. "I don't go to the barn or to the house anymore without something in me hand," he admitted sheepishly. "I don't like it. But aye, there it is."

To his vast relief, Miss Sullivan nodded, her demeanor softening. "I understand Mr. Monahan," she said, seemingly slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I heard what happened out there at your station."

"Aye." He felt himself deflate. "I'm on me guard all the time. First time I wasn't, we all paid for it." He fumbled in his pocket for the rumpled sheet on which he'd scrawled his assignment.

"I didn't mean to snap at you, Mr. Monahan," Miss Sullivan murmured. She pulled the dog-eared paper in front of her and looked it over, nodding approvingly. "This is all good...we need to work on your penmanship...but that's not our priority right now. Reading first. You say you've had no schooling at all, so this is wonderful first try." she looked up at him. "I'm a bit surprised you've had no schooling at all. You're from New York?"

"Aye, so I am."

"What did you do there?"

All his nervousness came rolling back like floodwater through a break in a dam. I was a gun-toting thug in the Roach Guard, helping criminals defend their interests from other criminals. Aye, Georgie Fecking Washington, tell her all about that. Tell her that no matter how far west you go, some part of you still thinks the Dead Sodding Rabbits or Bill the Butcher might surprise you while you're walking back from the jake some night. He let out a long breath. I can't tell her this, she already thinks the worst of me. "I worked for the coach line," he said, disgusted with himself at how easily the lie rolled off his tongue. I've had a lot of practice at lying, sure. Enough to know I should throw a little truth into the sodding pot. "I've been a...a coach guard for a long time, so I have."

"Oh." Miss Sullivan sounded surprised. "I understand you were injured when you arrived here...and that's how you know the Plunketts?"

"Aye." Wash slid the primer across the table and pretended to study it. I can't look her in the eye while I'm spinning out this miserable river of horseshite. "Lost a knife fight with a bandit in a coach robbery couple years back, so I did." I suppose if I stretched that one far enough, it might be close enough to truth. Sort of. If you want to call a 'straightforward stabbing' a 'fight' and a 'vendetta' a 'coach robbery' Jaysus, what a sodding tosser I am. He cleared his throat. "Ugly business, sure. The Plunketts took me in and patched me up when I got here. I was on the coach, and the driver dragged me to the doc against me will."

Mrs. Plunkett piped up from her desk. "And how is our dear Mr. Bari? On the mend?"

"Aye, Missus, Saint's surly and insufferable, as usual. But I think we're stuck with him."

Mrs. Plunkett smiled, turning over another sheet of paper on her desk. Miss Sullivan raised an eyebrow at him. "You've clearly had quite an adventurous life, Mr. Monahan."

"Aye. Maybe too much so." Wash nodded, feeling self-conscious and awkward. "You might thinking I'm having a go at you saying this...but I stayed here in Green River because I liked the quiet."

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