Sunset Assignment In San Piccolo

Act One

Author's Note
If you are reading this story on any other platform than Wattpad, you are at risk of a malware attack. Wattpad is the only site I have given permission to publish this story. To read it in its original, safe form, please go to Wattpad. Thank you. @Mrsdeemo  
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She's here.
Mary Leighton.
Of course. That was how the world worked. No matter where you went, your past always caught up with you eventually. Today happened to be that damn day.

Dust swirled in a tango around my scuffed leather boots. The tangerine folds of the setting sun clung to the sides of the mountains that surrounded the San Piccolo basin. The insistence of the breeze shuffled discarded cigar butts and dry soil into an unintentional race.

Mary Leighton.

She stepped lightly from the third class coach, smiling sweetly at the offer of outstretched hands from all but one of her fellow passengers. The exception being another female of a much slimmer and younger mould who lacked the curvature and smouldering passion of the thirty-year-old, redheaded teacher.

Teacher.

It made me smile to think that Mary had made something of herself. Last time I'd seen her, she had given up her hopes of a bright future to turn tricks at the 'Okay' saloon in Derby. Her laudanum addiction had taken over her life. And, unfortunately our love. She'd chosen her drug above everything, at such a young age. No matter how hard I'd tried, I hadn't been able to get her to see her habit for what it was. I had failed Mary Leighton. I never thought I'd see her fine, handsome face again.

Would she recognise me?

Time had not been kind to me. In fact, I would say it had been pretty damn cruel. The slim, stately figure of the rich gentleman from England that she used to know, had been erased by two decades of bar fights, drink and rough sleeping.

I'd come by my Sherrif's badge the hard way. I was betting that she'd earned her title of teacher in a similar  fashion.

Once she'd stepped her worn out black laced boots onto the hard ground, Mary graciously thanked the lucky owner of the hand and swept aside the lacy black veil from her face. She pushed it up over the peak of her dark brown bonnet and squinted through the coal smoke at her welcoming committee.

Me.

I tugged at the brim of my Stetson and focused on my feet. Praying that she wouldn't remember any part of me or our childhood home of Derby.

"Are you it, Mister?"

Her voice had changed. Not the pitch or the southern intonation, but the joy had gone. The happy-go-lucky lilt that used to reside there and send me giggling like a choir boy up to no good.

"I said, are you all there is?"

Without raising my eyes I grumbled back.
"Yes, ma'am."

Ignoring the plying arms of her lucky carriage assistant, Mary waltzed her curvy way towards me, her black chiffon dress swishing its approach.

She must be in mourning. But for who?

"Well, then, Sheriff, would you be so kind as to escort me to my lodgings?"

She sounded tired, a tinge of irritability stung on the edge of her words. She wasn't going to like what I had to say next. The old Mary I knew would have laughed and told me to go to hell. Somehow, I had the feeling that this new, all-consumed version of my first love would give in too easy.

Clearing my throat, I took a deep breath and mumbled my orders.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you'll have to accompany me down to the dance at the Saloon. They're expecting you."