Rain In Its Season [Part 2]

A single kerosene lamp hung from a nail above the door, the glass coated in dust. Elijah Touhey sat in the dirt, head dripping between his knees, shirt glued to the bloody nubs of his spine.

“But I guess you saw this coming, such a gifted man as yourself,” Amos said, his shadow spilling through the iron bars. “Do you control the skies, or just read them? Had half a mind to let the boys keep at it. This town needs something. Of course, you know that. You smelled the desperation — like shit in the wind. It reeks, Mr. Touhey, I’ll give you that. These men, these … gadabouts. Nothing to plant. Nothing to harvest. Just time, Mr. Touhey. Too much time.”

After watching from a distance, Constable Amos J. Hunger had finally uncoupled the hose and canceled the whole idiot affair on Main Street. The mob cursed him every other way, fists clinched, but he knew they wouldn’t touch him, not one of their own. (Ole Abel was proof of that, perpetually fuddled and airing his paunch on the wrong man’s stoop. The ire and envy of every man in town — if only for his late wife — and yet he wakes again.) Amos ordered the fat man with the hose to unwrap Elijah, to put his feet back on the ground. As he hauled the sopping charlatan toward the courthouse, body limp as a scarecrow, the mob finally moseyed away, confused, as if wrestled from a dream.

“You prey on the weak, Mr. Touhey. It’s a vile habit.”

“Why am I here?”

“I’ll think of something.”

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