Nunslinger: The Complete Series by Stark Holborn

Author:Stark Holborn [Holborn, Stark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2014-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

With an iron pen and in a plate of lead

Reasoner returned daily. He was apparently unperturbed by the fact I never made any sign of speaking, or acknowledging his questions. Instead he would enter and stand hunched in the doorway, flicking through his handful of worn papers, annotated edge to edge with pencil scrawl.

He began with the same question every time.

‘Sister Thomas Josephine, you are currently held accountable for six charges of murder by the states of Nevada, California and the New Mexico Territory, for the deaths of the Brothers Paxton of Stillwater, Father Johannes Laverman of Sacramento and Privates Worth, Hemmel and Lee of the 1st Regiment New Mexico Volunteer Cavalry. Can you provide me with any information to the contrary?’

As always, I did not answer, but instead studied his face in detail. I had never heard of a black man being made marshal, and to try and figure his character became something of a hobby of mine. I had his face mapped by heart. I determined that his nose had been broken and re-set a number of times. His cheeks were roughened by the elements, and spoke of many months living in the saddle. His eyes were sharp, yet weary: weighed down by too many nights awake. They helped me place his age at around forty.

I believe my study disquieted him, for eventually he would snap from his expectant silence to stuff the papers back into one voluminous pocket and bid me good day.

On the fifth or sixth visit I rose to greet him. His eyes lingered over my feet. It was February, and bitterly cold. The glass in the high window of my room had frost on the inside, and the joints of my bare fingers and toes were angry with chillblains.

‘Why do you do this?’ Reasoner asked quietly, seeing me wince as I stood. I glanced over his shoulder to the sister who accompanied him.

‘Thomas Josephine is a penitent,’ she told him calmly. ‘She is atoning for the sins she committed in the world by secluding herself here, and by the denial of material comforts.’

Reasoner scraped at his forehead and frowned. I thought he would speak his mind, but when he finally did open his mouth, it was to frame the usual words:

‘Sister Thomas Josephine, you are held accountable for six charges of murder . . .’

The diocese had prevented him from arresting me, I discovered, saying that I was not in my right mind. The convent’s walls protected me from justice. Reasoner knew this, but still he came and asked his questions, and every day I remained silent. I wondered why he should waste time in such a fruitless task.

On his seventh visit he completed his usual inquiries and stood, waiting for a response. I, in turn, was engaged in a study of his coat cuffs. They were frayed, evidently he had no time to darn them himself, and no one who cared to do it for him.

‘Sister Josephine.’ His words were hesitant through my contemplation.

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