Wanted

Chapter 16

With his heart hammering hard inside his chest, John decided he was glad that he had dared to steal the key to his door earlier on. He quickly locked himself into his own room just in case and was immensely relieved when he heard Edwards slam the door to his workshop shut from the inside.

Despite the locked door he lay in his bed terrified, listening to Edwards bang and clatter about noisily until late into the night. John was well used to people drinking around him. Having seen Edwards downstairs he had seriously misjudged the man however. He thought he'd be the happy kind, the one who'd warm up with a bit of drink in him, the one that would tell stories or sing a song or part with his money more easily with a twinkle in his eye, like Bill, the old farmhand.

He just couldn't make the two out, how they blew hot and cold all the time, but drunk, that was a completely different dimension altogether. People who got that angry when they were drunk could be dangerous, especially men and he knew it. The bruises that his ma sometimes had come home with after a night working as a 'waitress' in one of the saloons were testimony to that. There were some people who would say and do things when they were drunk, that they would be ashamed of when they were sober. He had seen this everywhere around him, where he grew up, even in his own home. His mother, although physically never violent, had a vicious tongue when she was drunk, of which she claimed she had no recollection the next day.

Eventually, when everything did quieten John filled his pockets with his few belongings, put on an extra jumper and snuck out onto the stairs. He'd made up his mind. He was going to take the pistol which he had seen in the good room on his first evening, and some ammunition too. He was going to sneak into the pantry to fill one of the empty little sacks he'd seen there earlier with some food and then make his way over to the barn and steal a bedroll there. He had it all planned out. He would walk along the river. By morning time, he reckoned, he would be at the outskirts of the city. He'd make his way to the train station and jump onto one of the early morning trains before the place got too busy. He'd try to get into one of the carriages in the back that were usually reserved for people's horses and goods, where he could hide more easily and it was less likely that he was discovered.

But of course it wasn't meant to be.

He didn't even make it all the way down the first flight of stairs when Edwards came charging out of his room with a bottle in hand and barked at him, "...come back up them stairs, you!"

John had assumed Edwards to be one of those kind of drunks who'd fall into an alcohol induced comatosed slumber after his outburst, on accounts that there had been absolutely no noise or movement coming from next door but he'd been wrong. The alcohol had done nothing for the man's ability to fall asleep it seemed. He obviously was one of those kind of drunks who'd sit and stew in their anger and self pity until someone disturbed their train of thought that usually circles around how unfair life had been to them thus far. Someone who when drunk, like a loaded gun, should be left well alone, lest he'd go off and explode.

"Where do you think you are going at this time of the night," he bellowed angrily at him.

Wondering if it was a good thing that he could hear the bedroom door downstairs open, John stammered helplessly at first, fearing that Edwards had realised he was about to be running away but then quickly came to his senses and made up a plausible excuse. "I am on my way to the outhouse, I need to go, my tummy is a little upset," he told the man, hoping it would suffice. He could call himself lucky he wasn't caught in the good room with his hand on the gun or much worse the pantry stealing food, he thought.

"You're doing no such thing," Edwards barked, still as angry but thankfully not moving towards him. "There is a chamber pot under your bed. You can use that if you have to go," Edwards told him sternly with a little more composer than just a moment ago, and John realised that the man although drunk, was not that drunk that he was completely out of control or couldn't make sense of what was going on around him.