seeking the right venue for a short story

I wrote this story for an anthology that the Arizona Chapter of the Horror Writers’ Association was planning. Everything was on track until it wasn’t. Looks like the antho is dead. So, this story is looking for a home. I actually think it’s great. 7,800 words. About a man with a past that catches up with him when an old prospector wanders into camp one night out in the dry washes of the Superstition Mountains. There’s more than meets the milky dead eye.

Tully Timmons

by Zachary Wells

“Name?”

“Tully. Tully Timmons.”

“Occupation?”

“Prospector.”

The man at the front desk snorted a little. Gold hunters weren’t common guests at the little hotel on Alvarado Street, not unless they’d struck and had money to spend. 

“Got one room. The most expensive kind. You want it?”

“Don’t sound like I got much choice.”

“I’ll need you to pay for the room up front. My apologies, but a lot of folks like to leave off in the dead of the night. Board can be paid in the morning before you go.”

Tully scanned the small slip of paper the man offered, pulled a crumpled note from his pocket, and laid it on the counter. He took his key, turned, and made his way to the narrow staircase a few yards from the counter. 

“You’ll be wanting supper?” the desk man called.

“No.”

At the top of the stairwell, Tully paused to count the doors to his left. There were two. Then, turning to the right, he continued counting the doors along the way. When he came to his own room, he paused for a minute, listening hard for voices from the other guests. He heard a man and a woman laughing drunkenly and amorously, maybe two rooms down; the sound of a bottle being set down too hard on a wooden table. Hearing nothing else, he looked up and down the hallway once more. He took note of the window at the end of the hall. He was on the second floor. He recalled from the street a sloping roof under that window. 

He slid the key into the door, gave it a little turn, pushed the door gently open, and tossed his hat into the room towards the dark shape of the bed. He stood stock still for a few seconds more before stepping over the threshold. Once inside, he closed the door, locked it, moved smoothly to the wall shared with the adjoining room, and pressed his ear up against it. Nothing. He did the same on the other wall. It was such a ritual now, he didn’t stop to think about how eccentric it might be compared to most people staying in a hotel, or even himself just a few months ago.

Having done all this in the dark, he moved to the lamp by the bedside, laid his Colt revolver on the table in the lee of the shade, and lit the lamp. He let his heavy rucksack down as gently as putting down a baby. For what felt like several hours, he laid there looking at the ceiling. A ghost in the corner would’ve wondered what the man was ruminating on, still fully dressed, except for his boots, eyes wide open. Every once in a while, the steady gentle breaths were interrupted by a bigger, deeper one. Was the man in the bed, crying?

Eventually, the eyes closed, and Tully slept soundly for a few hours, waking to a still-lit room. He checked the pocket watch he carried every day, stared for a moment too long at an unseen photo in the overleaf, and snapped the silver case shut. It was three hours before sunrise.

Time.

The stairs creaked more than he would’ve liked as he made his way back down. The hotel was dead quiet, the guests and then the staff having long-since retired for the night. He walked softly down the hall to the front door, painfully aware of the sound of his boots on the floorboards, and peered outside to find the streets soulless too. He had chosen the little hotel well. Ought to be good at it by now, he thought, much as I change one to another. He never stayed more than one night. No, his trail was hard to follow.

He twisted the brass knob gently and was unsurprised when it refused to turn. Back at the counter he quickly found the key in an unlocked drawer. Just on the off chance, he slid the counterman’s little drawer open and looked inside. The money box was gone. That would have been just about a fool’s luck.

Outside, he stood for a minute in the shadows and watched the empty street for movement. Not even a rat. He made his way around back to the stable where he found his mule and saddle bags. The mule made to whinny, flicked his tail, but Tully shushed him with a gentle hand over the muzzle. He tied his goods down—the supplies purchased over the past nervous days in Tucson—and moved out into the darkened streets. He heard a voice shouting off in the distance; another voice shouted back. More drunks in the middle of the night. Not who he was concerned about. 

By the devil’s mischievous happenstance, his route carried him directly past the courthouse, and he couldn’t help but stop for a second, looking at the aging adobe building with a bitter cocktail of irony, pride, and a stiff ounce of fear, all brewing in his belly. As he stood there, staring at the cold dark bars on the sole window, that cocktail birthed a niggling feeling throughout his guts, urging him to move on quickly. As the warning neared crescendo, where it simply must be heeded, he sensed movement from the corner of his eye. A lithe little coyote sauntered like a ghost out from behind a shuttered shop only two streets up and then sat back on its haunches right in the center of Court Street.

Tully watched the pup with curiosity; it was not strange to encounter a coyote in town necessarily, but it was strange for the animal to sit, like a child, watching a man with a musket strapped so obviously to the side of his mule. Not only was her behavior peculiar, but the poor girl appeared blind in one pale white eye. And so, Tully held out his hand and cooed softly towards her; he did have a soft side for animals of all sorts. But the coyote turned and loped off north, keeping to the center of the beaten dirt road.

It was the exact path Tully would take towards the hills, so he followed behind. Every few minutes she looked back as if to see that he was still following. And he kept a steady eye on her until, at one point, he looked up to the looming Catalina mountains to the northeast and when he looked back, she was gone.

Tully had been, by his count, sixty-three days in Arizona, most of that time up in the hills. Alone. The hills felt safe, and as he watched the lights of Tucson fade into the sunrise, he knew he wouldn’t miss the town at all in the weeks he figured he had supplies for. Won’t miss it at all. 

Hell, if he had his way, he’d never come back. 

Just had to find the luck he knew he didn’t deserve. Just had to keep to himself. 

And keep out of sight . . .

IF YOU’VE GOT A HOME FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY, LET ME KNOW!