CHAPTER ONE

12 years later

Sean Montgomery was in deep shit. Slumped dejectedly on a three-legged stool in the only rum shop in the small neighborhood nursing his fourth shot of whiskey, he gazed unseeingly at the light brown liquid; pondering his dilemma. He shifted his tall build, trying to get a comfortable position; but the stool creaked in protest. Someone had done a poor job of adding a fourth piece of wood for stability, but it would not hold for long. Sooner rather than later, it would crash under its occupant. He hoped it did not happen tonight. A burst of hearty laughter erupted across the room behind him. The place was crowded tonight. He wondered how much money would roll in. Not much, he thought, these bastards usually order everything on credit.

His gaze roamed across the room. The shop had a warm glow from the kerosene lamps spread evenly at the four corners. With a few tables and benches scattered carelessly across the area, there was no structure or form of organization. Odd sorted colours of tablecloths were draped haphazardly over the worn out tables. The ambience was welcoming. ‘This was a man’s doing,’ he thought to himself. He could not detect a woman’s touch anywhere, except on the tablecloths.

At least the room was clean; he wished he could say the same about some of the occupants.

The interior smelt of tobacco smoke, booze, sweat and roasted nuts, and every ten minutes, depending on the direction the wind was blowing, the putrid odor of rotten cabbage; someone had forgotten to place the garbage outside.

Situated at one of the corners of the room there was a special table set for dominoes. Five of the men folk were at it tonight, slamming the dominoes hard on the wooden table and cracking dirty jokes. His gaze slid lazily at the men, one of them had approached him earlier, inviting him to join in the game, but he had declined. No one dared approached him a second time.

This pub was a saviour as well as a reprieve for some. The men who ventured there did so mainly to relax, others to get away from the pressures of home, and the remaining few were there for company–to have someone to speak to because they simply had nowhere else to go. Tonight Sean was not sure which category he fit in; maybe all, maybe none. One thing he knew for sure was that he needed to set his mind straight.

Richard and his sister ran the small run-down tavern. Richard was built like a body builder, towering over six feet, with broad shoulders, and hairy as an ape. The townsfolk referred to him as the ‘giant’.

For as long as Sean could remember, this pub had always served people in the area. He recalled Richard’s father running the place. When he passed, Richard took up right where he had left off. With his hands still curled around the glass, Sean sat scrutinizing his contemporary. Richard’s height had never been intimidating to him, maybe because they had grown up together and were around the same age.

‘You look like you need a friend tonight. What bites my friend?’

Sean turned bloodshot eyes towards the voice. Richard was standing directly in front of him with a pitcher of water.

‘Nothing man, I just needed to get a drink to clear my mind a bit; that is all. It is nothing to worry about,’ Sean responded.

‘Uh huh, if you say so. However, from my vantage point it does not look like nothing. This is your fourth glass of whiskey and you are not a drinker. Whatever it is that is eating at you must be a tough one.’

Richard loitered by his side, waiting. A few seconds had elapsed when he patted him on the shoulder and muttered, ’If you need a listening ear buddy, you know where to find me.’

Sean watched silently as Richard shuffled away to attend to one of the men. He heard a commotion and realized that the youngest in the crowd tonight had started misbehaving and had tried to challenge Richard. Standing up to his full height, Richard walked slowly towards the boy who suddenly started to stammer.

 Sean chuckled watching the spectacle unfold and slowly die in front of him. Peter was the boy’s name, and he was intimidated by nothing more than Richard’s height. Richard liked to keep the men in the pub in order and most times the most effective way to settle a score was by demonstrating in particular to the young men that he was the boss of the place.

Sean did not buy into Richard’s macho nonsense. The man was soft hearted, anyone could see that. The sister on the other hand was a force to be reckoned with. She was single, with no child or man. He believed the reason for this was what she represented. No man wanted competition at his own home, in particular the men of Larouse. They believed that a woman’s place was at home managing the household and raising a family.

Intimidation was something they would not stand for, and she was not womanly material, not in his eyes anyways. He wished her luck in finding a man in the community who would be able to handle her. He pitied whoever this person would be because she would not make it easy. Sean sipped some more liquid from the glass and smiled crookedly to himself. She was a slip of a woman.

Her name was Fautina. She barely weighed one hundred pounds, but she was a spitfire. He had to admire her parents. They must have foreseen her persona as a babe. The name fits her well; to Sean she was the fort behind his pal Richard. Most of the men tried to stay out of her way.