Summary: There's always been rumours about the Mountain Man...
The premise of Shawnstown…
Companion piece to:
Chapter One: The Map That Leads To You - Freshly released from prison Pope decides to start his new life in honor of the woman he lost.
Chapter Two: The Crafty Fox - Three years after his release from prison Pope has made a home for himself in Shawnstown.
Chapter Three: Frappuccino- Pope makes a discovery about his business.
The problem with legends is that there’s usually an element of truth to them.
And the man who lives on the mountain, he’s certainly the thing of legends especially in this small town.
Most people they don’t even know his name, they just call him M.M.
The theories surrounding M.M are wild. They range from secret weed grows, to buried bodies and broken hearts. The last one is what Aubrey’s foster father Ray bets his money on. Grief, it does crazy things to a person, makes them shut down, isolate themselves. That’s why he ended up in this town, that and the fact Johnny Law was on his tail because of all that ‘ethical thieving’.
It's the trade he taught Aubrey back in Oceanside, when she was just a girl.
She pulls into the last empty space in front of the coffeeshop, next to a well-used Silverado with mud splattered up the side. It’s been a while since she’s seen one of them, not since her life before Aubrey.
She thinks of the man she left behind, the one that’ll be coming to the end of his prison sentence in six months’ time. She’s waited so long for him out here in Shawnstown, to hear his voice, to see his face, to recount every single one of his freckles with her kisses.
Her hands flex on the steering wheel, fingers curling around the cool plastic. The right one is much weaker than the left from the damage caused by the bullet Smurf’s hired gun put in her chest on the steps of the courthouse that day.
It was meant to be the happiest moment of her life, but instead she’d woken up to Ray standing by her bedside because he’d heard about the bounty that had been placed on her head. He'd taken care of everything, pulled every favour he was ever owed to legitimately kill off Dylan Halliwell, leaving Aubrey Ellis to start a new life in Shawnstown as his estranged daughter.
“We need to get Andrew.” She’d protested as he bundled her into the car that night to make the trip and that’s when he’d told her about the arrest.
They both knew the kind of time he’d be looking at; they both knew what would happen if she decided to stay.
“There isn’t just you to think about anymore.” Ray had said, looking pointedly at her abdomen. “The doc said it was lucky the both of you survived.”
That’s the other kicker; she’d woken up to bullet wound and the news that she was three months pregnant. She’d had absolutely no idea until that moment. She thought all the nausea and the tiredness was anxiety about taking that money and planning their escape.
Andrew and Dylan, they’d always talked about starting a family, they just hadn’t realised it would be sooner rather than later.
She’d wanted to reach out during her recovery, let him know that she was alive, that she was safe. But Smurf, she has affiliates in Folsom. They monitored phone calls, letters, any means of contact she could have used to send a message to him.
So, she’d had to wait, bide her time, and that’s what she did. She started to build a life for the two of them, one that would be waiting when he arrived. In the meantime, she raised their daughter, telling her stories about her father, of the wonderful adventures they’d had together.
She takes her notepad out of her purse on the passenger seat and flips the page so she can review her list of things to do. Her handwriting is awful today, straggly and unfamiliar. The lavender oil she makes helps with the pain, but she’d not used it since yesterday because she spent the night at the hospital with Ray after his mini stroke. It’s the second one he’s had in the last few years. She’s concerned they’ll be more in the future.
The first thing she needs before she even thinks about tackling this list is a latte. The coffee at the hospital is fucking awful and she’s been craving that caffeine fix ever since she woke up with her two and a half year old Freya cradled on her lap this morning. Her hand comes to rest on the door handle as she glances at the coffee shop and that’s when she sees him, sitting at one of the booths through the glass.
At first, she thinks it must be a trick of the light because her Andrew, he can’t be here. But he is, his hair is longer than it’s ever been, his unruly auburn curls springing from his head the same way their daughter’s do. Her breath catches, and her heart stops because as much as she’s convinced herself she’s prepared for this moment, she actually isn’t.
Her hands return to the steering wheel as she watches him talk to Ani, Scotty’s niece. He’s always been good with kids and watching him interact with her, it makes her eyes sting because he would have been such a wonderful father to Freya. He would have been gentle, attentive, he would have loved her with every single fibre of his being.
“Mama?” Freya’s drowsy voice interrupts the moment, jerking Aubrey back to the present from her car seat in the back of the vehicle. “Are we home now?”
“No.” Aubrey says softly, turning on the engine and reversing out of the space, forgetting about the latte. “But we will be soon.”
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Summary: Freshly released from prison Pope decides to start his new life in honor of the woman he lost.
The reason Pope ends up in prison isn’t because of a botched job. It’s because of a woman, two of them in fact.
One he was very much in love with and the one that murdered her on the steps of the courthouse they’re supposed to get married in.
He finds that out after his arrest, when he’s dragged to the station and he catches a glimpse of the television the cop in the custody suite is watching. The three o’clock news is playing and that’s when he sees Dylan’s face plastered all over it.
The victim of a random shooting they report.
They show a picture of her from the CCTV footage, wearing a white dress, holding a bouquet of tangerine roses. She was waiting, he knows, waiting for him to finish up that job with his brothers so they could run away together with the one million dollars he’d stolen from Smurf’s storage locker the night before.
He knows in that moment what his mother has done, that his incarceration and Dylan’s death are a simultaneous punishment.
This is what happens when you go against the family. They drive a knife into your chest, carve out your heart and then crush it in their fist right before your eyes. He knows because he’s always been the one doing the carving, the one who gets the visera on his hands, the one who buries the bodies.
At least he was that until he met Dylan, and then everything had changed. She’d made him see that he was more than the animal his family had turned him into, more than just the attack dog they kept tethered on a chain, waiting for the moment they needed him.
He had softened and that’s the thing his mother didn’t like, her monster gaining back some of his humanity, starting to want things that the family couldn’t give him.
The wife, the baby, the house on the beach.
But Pope, he doesn’t get to have those things not after all the horrible shit he’s done. He understands that now.
He had some so fucking close to hanging himself in that prison cell after her death, to succumbing to the beatings, the torture, the humiliation but it didn’t because there was always Dylan’s voice right there in the back of his head whispering.
Don’t let them destroy you Andy, promise me, you won’t give into that darkness.
Those three years in prison should have broken him, obliterated him but somehow she had kept him hanging on even from beyond the grave.
“All you have to do is tell Smurf where the money is and all this, it stops.” The guard had whispered into his ear as he was spitting blood into his pillowcase. “Just give her what she wants.”
He’d laughed then, a loud manic sound that echoes through the walls of his cell making even the man who was determined to ruin him flinch at the sound of it.
“She’s already killed the best thing about me.” He’d snarled as the hand on the back of his neck pressed his face deeper into the pillow. “I haven’t felt goddamn thing since she died.”
They give up after that, leave him to rot in his cell for the next year because you can’t get blood from a stone, not when you’ve already bled it dry.
Now he’s in the desert in the middle of the night, digging a hole out with a shovel he’d purchased with a portion of the gate money they gave him for serving out his sentence with a stolen car idling a couple of metres away. The high beams are on, shining on the exact spot where him and Dylan hid the money three years ago.
It’s taken him over eight hours to get back here. By tomorrow morning his family will know he’s out, and that’s when they’ll start looking for him.
A glimpse of navy blue fabric appears in the dirt, the flash of red from the logo on the side as he ploughs the shovel into the dirt around it creating a buffer of space so he can yank it out in one go. He hauls the bag out of the hole, setting it down on the on the hood of the Buick. He unzips it and surveys the cash, still bundled together just as neatly as the night he’d stolen it.
His heart tears at itself because sitting on top of it all is an envelope containing two new identities, one for him and one for Dylan, and the map they had spread out across her table when they were trying to choose where they wanted to go.
He picks it up his hand shaking because he still can’t believe he’s doing this without her, that he has to find a way to live out their dream all by himself. He unfolds the rumpled paper, using his palm to spread it out across the hood. There circled in the red is a township alongside Lake Siskiyou, you’d barely know it was there unless you squinted.
Shawnstown, it’s called.
The place where Andrew Pope is about to start his new life.
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Summary: Three years after his release from prison Pope has made a home for himself in Shawnstown.
Masterlists:
Andrew Pope Cody
Sammy Bryant
Charlie Reid
Clayton Emerson
Jack Abbot
Stan Rosado
Companion piece to:
Chapter One: The Map That Leads To You - Freshly released from prison Pope decides to start his new life in honor of the woman he lost.
There’s a scratching at the workshop door.
The sound of tiny white paws raking against the wood as the creature tries to get inside.
Pope sighs, setting the paintbrush back down into the heather grey paint can before he forces himself to his feet. He promised himself last night, and the night before that he wouldn’t do this again but here he is opening the door to the beast.
A red fox streaks in through the gap, heading directly past the paint can to the dust sheet he’s tossed in the corner underneath the infrared ceiling heater. It pads the rough fabric with it’s feet before settling down and yawning.
“Alright, just come in like you own the place.” He mutters to Franco, leaving the door ajar so that the animal can leave when it wants to. The fox yips at him and Pope rolls his eyes as he picks up a handful of peanuts from the bag on the work bench before tossing them to him. He snuffles the first one, crunching it between his jaws before he sniffs out the rest.
“We’re running out of these things.” He tells Franco as he holds up the plastic bag for the fox to see before sealing it. “We’ll have to get some more from the store tomorrow, maybe we’ll mix them up with some roasted cashews, give you a little treat before the winter sets in.”
The fox eats another peanut in response to Pope’s words and Pope nods his head.
“That’s a yes on the cashews huh?” He says before placing the bag on the highest shelf above the workbench so Franco can’t get to it.
He learned that lesson the hard way last year when the fox first showing up at his door. The wily thing managed to climb up onto the workbench using the stool and torn the plastic open with his teeth, scattering them everywhere. Pope had ended up yelling at the damn animal because his carefully controlled domain had devolved into chaos and Franco had slinked off into the night, not returning for almost a week.
In the end Pope and become so desperate for company, he’d started to leave a trail of peanuts from the edge of his property leading up to the workshop where he spent most evenings working on the orders that came through for his woodworking skills.
Building shit had started off as a way to keep himself busy in the evenings. Being up here on the mountain alone gave him too much time to think especially when the darkness rolled in so he started collecting sticks from around the ten acres he’d purchased along with the cabin and workshop, turning them into birdhouses and using moss as decorations. He’d dotted them around his property, and spent mornings on his porch sipping coffee, watching chickadees and wrens darting in and out of them.
“You should try selling them.” Ray the owner of the General Store had told him when he’d dropped by after not seeing him for a couple of weeks. Pope had been sick with the flu, too dizzy to make the drive into town and then other man had brought soup. “I’ve got some shelf space opened up, I’m sure they’d go great in the spring. You mind if I take a couple? I’ll give you the cash next time you’re in town.”
“Just have them.” Pope had said gesturing to the growing pile of bird houses, that were taking up residence on his kitchen table, moss piled neatly beside them. It had been the only task he could do when he was sick because he didn’t trust himself around power tools. “I have too many of the damn things anyway.”
“Maybe you should try your hand at something else.” Ray had said, tipping his head towards the chipped coffee table that came with the cabin. “Collect some driftwood from the beach maybe, make yourself a new coffee table.”
Until that moment branching out had never occurred to Pope. He’d become fixated on the birdhouses, which was why his workshop was full of them. He’d never had a chance to explore his creativity before. Everything prior to this was always done with some purpose in mind. An apparatus to help with a heist, a vent set up to practice in. He’d never just done something because he wanted to see if he could. There’s a joy in it he hadn’t expected, which is why he now has an obscene amount of birdhouses.
When spring hits the birdhouses sell out within the first week. He doesn’t expect the phone call asking if he can bring the rest by or the wad of cash Ray hands him when they’ve sold out too.
“People are asking what else you do.” Ray informs him as he wipes down the counter. “If you take special requests?”
“Like what?” He asks as he counts the notes in his hand before calculating ten percent of the sales. He separates the cash before setting it down on the counter and sliding it towards Ray. They hadn’t made formal agreement but the old guy definitely deserves a cut for giving him the shelf space and actively selling his shit.
“Mrs Waynes would like a couple of plant boxes for her porch.” Ray informs him, taking the bills and putting them into the register. “She said to go over and chat with her when you’re ready, she can give you the measurements.”
Pope freezes then. He’s given the people of this town a wide berth since coming here, removing himself from interactions, scowling whenever one of them sidles up to him. He doesn’t know how to talk to people since Dylan’s been gone. She’d brought him out of his shell when the two of them were together and he’s regressed since her death. The only person he really knows is Ray and that’s because dealing with him was a necessity when he first rolled into town.
“It’s ok.” Ray says after a minute. “I can get my daughter to head out there, get the details. She’s the one that makes the lavender wreaths like the one you have on your front door. Mrs Wayne’s loves talking to her.”
The wreath had been a welcome gift from the town, along with a basket full of local produce. It had been so unexpected that he hadn’t known what to do with it when it arrived on his porch, he’d sat there staring at it for an hour or two before taking it inside and carefully allocating the items to their new homes. He isn’t used to the kindness of strangers. He isn’t used to kindness full stop.
His business starts to grow over unwittingly over the next three years. Word spreads that he’s the guy to go to when you want ethical, unique custom woodwork. He starts to get calls from local businesses like Hatterby Farm asking if he wants to reclaim the wood from the barn they’re pulling down for his creations. This allows him to experiment with making bigger pieces like the toddler bed for guy who owns the outdoor activity centre by the lake.
The notes that Ray’s daughter Aubrey has taken are always meticulous and detailed, handed over in an envelope that smells like wild flowers. She always adds a couple of extra things he doesn’t need to know but he appreciates anyway because it makes him feel connected to the town. Like the fact Sammy’s kid has become Houdini and keeps escaping out of his crib by shoving his ‘Wolfie’ against the side and then howling Sammy awake because he can’t get Wolfie out through the bars.
He's pulled from his thoughts by a flash of copper, he tilts his head up to see Franco running across one of the freshly painted slats of wood he has laid, leaving small fox paw prints in the heather grey as he chases after a peanut that’s escaped.
“For fuck’s sake Franco…” Pope mutters before standing above the slat with his hands on his hips to survey the damage.
The piece of wood is laid out in between two others that will form the back panel of the bed that will slot against the wall in little Houdini’s room. Pope finds he actually quite likes the addition to the design, it gives the piece a bespoke twist, perfect for a kid that loves running around in the outdoors.
“Good job Franco.” He murmurs, rubbing his palm across his grizzled jaw before glancing at the fox as he chomps down his prize. “I’m gonna have to start calling this business The Crafty Fox if you keep this up.”
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Premise: Shawnstown is an AU universe, where different Shawn Hatosy characters have found a home over the years for different reasons within their journeys. This is not in line with any of the current ongoing storylines for these characters.
Learn More Here
First Chapters:
Andrew Pope Cody
Sammy Bryant
Charlie Reid
Clayton Emerson
Stan Rosado (Lee)
Summary: Jack latest search operation yields more questions than answers.
There’s a point during a Search and Rescue operation where it stops being about finding the individual and instead becomes about recovering their remains. Jack knows that, he accepts that. He just wishes it was different this time because this assignment…
It’s left him with more questions than answers.
Like the letters still sealed in their envelopes scattered across the ground around the deceased’s empty car, the one they’d found with the driver’s door open, keys in the ignition.
Her purse found fifteen miles into the dense woodland that surrounded her home, tipped out and strewn amongst the undergrowth.
The word HELP written on the ground with sticks and stones, the arrow pointing towards the abandoned fire road where they’d found the eighty year Sheila Dupree sprawled out, her blood and brain matter leaking into the dirt. She’d been dead at least eighteen hours, he could tell from the discolouration of her skin and the stiffness in her limbs. Another six and she’d be slowly easing her way out of rigor.
It’s meant to look like she slipped in the mud, hit her head on a rock but Jack doesn’t need a Medical Examiner to tell him when someone’s skull has been bashed in.
Thankfully neither does Chief of Police Charlie Reid. He’s been the Incident Commander in this search as is the protocol in small townships like theirs. Robby’s the designated Search Manager, developing strategy and deploying resources back at the Command Post while Jack leads a team of specialised searchers during call outs.
“She used to be a journalist you know?” Charlie says beside him, tilting his head to survey the body. “She’s been retired for a decade but she was still sharp as a tack according to the neighbours, not the type of person to lose their shit and go running off into the woods.”
They get a lot of dementia cases throughout this county, elderly folks who get disoriented, wander off. Jack’s worked enough of those searches to know that this isn’t one of them.
He tilts his head down to look at the ground underneath his boots. There’s been a lot of rain during the twenty four hours Sheila’s been missing. It’s saturated the mud, washing way the possibility of finding any footprints other than those of the searchers that located her.
“You think its tied to the other shit in the area?” He asks Charlie, crossing his arms over his chest.
There’s been a lot of weird crap going on in these woods over the past couple of months, disappearing hikers, campsites torn to pieces, reports of a bogey man stalking through the trees at night.
If it were thirty miles in the other direction he’d laugh and say that last one’s just Pope, but that man, he sticks to his own territory and he’s certainly not the type to go around slashing tents without cause.
“Maybe.” Charlie says before reaching into the pocket of his neon yellow windbreaker and removing the letters he collected from the scene back by the house. “I took the liberty of opening these as I thought it might give us a read on where she’d gotten to when the search was still active. She talks in circles for a while about finding something out there in the wild, doesn’t say what it is though.” Charlie sighs shrugging his shoulders. “The problem is I’m not from around here so I don’t understand the landmarks she’s referring to. I was wondering if your bloodhound could take a look?”
“She’s not my-” Jack cuts himself off before pursing his lips together and shaking his head. “That woman would rather light my ass on fire right now that have me darken her doorstep.”
“Well I’m gonna be tied up with this scene for the rest of the day and I kinda need her help with these letters so…” Charlie shoves them towards Jack. “If you’re not gonna do it for me then do it for the dead woman lying at our feet, doesn’t she deserve our best effort here?”
Jack scowls. Their Chief, he’s a wily asshole. Never afraid to lay it on thick when he needs to, appealing to Jack’s sense of duty, pulling at his heart strings.
“She’s gonna burn me alive Charlie.” He informs the other man, snatching the letters from his hand.
“Yeah but she’ll probably put you out too.” Charlie reasons, clasping Jack’s shoulder sympathetically. “Afterall, isn’t that what Fire Chiefs do?”
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Summary: Pope makes a discovery about his business.
Companion piece to:
Chapter One: The Map That Leads To You - Freshly released from prison Pope decides to start his new life in honor of the woman he lost.
Chapter Two: The Crafty Fox - Three years after his release from prison Pope has made a home for himself in Shawnstown.
“We need to talk about the money you owe me.”
It’s the first thing Pope hears when he parks up outside the General Store, the toddler bed tucked safely underneath the tarp in the back of his truck. His head snaps towards the culprit, a dark haired tween wearing a vintage Powerpuff Girl t-shirt with eyes the color of bourbon. There’s a skateboard tucked underneath her arm and a brown leather satchel slung across her chest covered in patches from bands that are at least two decades older than her.
“Kid,” he says slamming the truck door closed behind him because it’s gotten a little stiff. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His gaze strays to the General Store beyond her and he frowns. Ray always has the door propped open in the summer because the place gets a little stuffy but today its closed, the white blinds still pulled down over the glass panel. He checks his watch.
9.15am.
It should be open by now. He doesn’t like change, his routines are in place for a reason, to keep his mind from becoming too cluttered with the sins from his past.
“I’m the reason that your business is doing so well.” The kid says interrupting his thoughts and he tips his head towards her, his dark eyebrows furrowing into a frown that makes the crease appear between them.
“What? You mean by helping out at the General Store selling my stuff?”
“Sometimes.” She concedes, bobbing her head from side to side so her chin length dark hair swishes. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about?” He responds and she rolls her eyes as if she’s talking to an idiot. Her hand lashes out grabbing his and he finds himself being led away from his truck and onto the pavement.
“This should be a proper business meeting with drinks and Wi-Fi.” She informs him, pulling open the door to the coffeeshop and yanking him inside.
“But I’ve got things to do-”
“The stores not open yet.” She points out ushering him into a seat by the window and he has no option but to comply.
What the fuck is happening? He asks himself staring at a menu that resembles the same kind of bullshit he used to see in Oceanside. Frappuccinos Macciatios, what the hell does any of it mean?
The kid holds out her hand expectantly and he takes his wallet out of his back pocket, putting a twenty dollar bill into her palm. She waltzes towards the counter with confidence of someone who has been here a thousand times before while he’s left sitting with his dick in the wind.
Already he can tell he can tell drawing attention. There’s a mom’s group in the corner who look away when he glares at them and a couple of elderly ladies who smile at him over their coffee. He ducks his head to avoid them because he doesn’t deserve that kindness.
He busies himself instead with taking in the aesthetic of the place. The tall windows with black colonial grids that filter in the light from outside. The exposed brickwork contrasts with the plush green plants that are tastefully placed around the room, giving it an almost garden like feel. Edison bulbs hang over the dark wood counter illuminating the black chalkboard fixed to the all behind it with a warm glow. He’s never been inside this place before but he finds himself liking the vibe.
He’s disrupted by the kid coming back, she bounces into the seat across from him, scattering his change across the table between them. He sighs, reaching for it, organising the coins in a neat row by size order before he returns them to his wallet.
“Do you have OCD?” She asks him observing the behaviour and his cheeks colour. “A kid in my class does but his thing is more about symmetry, he draws these really intricate mandala designs that I help him cut out so he can stick them onto his folders.”
The way she says it, it’s as if it’s completely normal. Just another fact about a person, like he wears glasses or has freckles. It wasn’t like that for Pope growing up with his condition, it isn’t like that for him now as an adult. He knows he does weird shit but for the first time in a long time it doesn’t feel like weird shit, not by this kid’s standards.
A drink is set down in front of him and he stares at it unsure of what the hell he’s supposed to do with it. It’s a lilac coloured monstrosity with a whipped cream mountain and delicate flakes of white chocolate grated on top.
“You good here Ani?” The barista says, lingering at the edge of the table, her gaze flickering between the two of them. “You need me to call your aunt or Charlie?”
“Nope.” She tells her, shaking her head as she pulls a butterfly inspired computer tablet out of the satchel before swiping on the screen. The device lights up in her hands as she tilts it towards the barista so she can see. “Drew is helping me with my project for business club.”
Drew… that’s his name out here, the one Dylan picked for his new identity. It was close enough to Andrew that it wouldn’t jar so much when it rolled off the tongue. He remembers her straddling his lap before it all went to hell, her teeth nipping at that sensitive little spot beneath the hinge of his jaw as she whispered it against his skin.
“Oh I didn’t realise that was you.” The barista says, switching her focus to him. Something’s shifted now, he isn’t sure what but her finger starts to twirl with a strand of hair that’s escaped her ponytail, her body angling towards him. “I have one of your bird boxes at home, the one you painted with blue cornflowers. You must be exceptional with those hands of yours.”
She reaches out to touch him but he pulls them both off the table, tucking them into his lap instead. She bites her lower lip, her eyelashes fluttering as Ani rolls her eyes and says loudly. “Take a hint Sarah, he’s not interested.”
Pink erupts across her cheeks before she turns on her heel, retreating back to the counter. Pope stares after her dumbfounded because the kid, she has to be wrong. He’s not the type of man that women fawn all over.
He clears his throat hoping to dispel some of the tension as Ani scowls shaking her head.
“This kind of thing happens to Charlie all the time.” She tells him, picking up straw and depositing it into his drink. “My Aunt Em says it’s because there aren’t enough single men in this town.”
It’s the second time the aunt has been mentioned, he’s starting to get the impression that maybe the parents aren’t around which is probably why the kid’s out here harassing him at nine in the morning. She prods the drink towards him and his jaw sets as he stares down at it.
“I can’t drink this.” He tells her, pushing it back towards her. “It’s probably got all sorts of chemical shit in it-”
Ani pushes it back.
“It’s all locally sourced, milk and cream from the local dairies, chocolate from Bonnie’s across the street. The lavender comes from Aubrey’s farm. You should try it, it might chill you out a little.”
Aubrey, his mind fixes on the name as he bends his head to capture the straw in his mouth. He didn’t know she had a lavender farm, he just thought she helped her dad out at the General Store and ran around dealing with his shit.
An explosion of taste erupts on his tongue, honey but more floral with a smidge of vanilla. He can’t remember the last time he tasted something so rich and sweet. He sips again his eyes flicking upwards to see Ani watching him with a grin on her impish features.
“Aren’t you a little young for business club?” He finds himself saying as he uses the straw to prod some of the cream into the drink. “Shouldn’t you be spending your summer skateboarding in the park or something?”
“That’s after business club, and I need to get a head start if I want Aunt Em to let me help with the distillery.” She informs him before swiping her finger on the tablet. “As part of the club we’re supposed to pick a local business to shadow. She wouldn’t let me use ours because I’m still a kid and apparently it’s illegal so I chose yours instead because there was room for a lot of improvement...”
He frowns as he stares down at the screen in front of him. It’s an Instagram account called Mountain Man Makes… The red and white logo is a simple faceless lumberjack with his curls and plaid shirt with an axe sticking out from the side.
He takes the tablet from her hand and scrolls through the posts. All of them are images of his products in the wild. Birds flitting in and out of bird boxes, a stable he made for a little girl last year, the My Little Ponies sitting around a handcrafted table having a tea party. He clicks on a video and it’s a blond haired kid waving around one of the fox toys he modelled after Franco, his mom telling the audience how much he loves playing with Mr Fox. His eyes sting as he takes it in, because after all the heinous shit he’s done in his life he’s finally bringing some joy back into the world.
“I think it’s only fair since I’ve been doing the photography, the videos and the marketing that I get a cut from the sales.” Ani tells him when the video ends. Pope swallows past the ache in his chest, the back of his hand chasing across his eyes.
“What are you suggesting?” He asks, his voice raw as he hands the tablet back to her.
“You pay me a fixed fee per month to manage your social media with backpay for the last month. I’m thinking…” She writes down a figure on a receipt for the drinks and slides it across the table to him. He picks it up scrutinizing the amount.
It isn’t much compared to the work she’s been doing and honestly he doesn’t need the money. He still has half a mil stashed underneath the floorboards back in the cabin. The proceeds from the business usually end up being deposited into the foodbank tin at the General Store. He doesn’t give shit about the cash, he just wants to keep creating things that make other people happy.
“I’ll need to talk to your Aunt.” He tells Ani as he folds up the receipt and tucks it into the pocket of his jacket. “Make sure it’s ok with her.”
Ani pulls a face and Pope gives her a sardonic look.
“I’m serious.” He says firmly, his elbows coming to rest on the table as he leans forward. “I can’t just hand over money to a kid, people think I’m weird enough as it is and I need to make sure that you’re not spending it on something that you shouldn’t be.”
His thoughts flit back to Julia, to the shit she was doing at twelve years old. He can’t be responsible for something like that. He won’t be responsible for that.
“Fine.” Ani mutters, slumping back in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest. “But she’s gonna give us both a lecture.”
“It’s good that you have someone who cares about you like that.” He tells her honestly, finishing off his own Frappuccino. “My sister and I, we didn’t have that, it kinda messed us both up.”
“You don’t seem too bad.” Ani remarks picking up her drink and tipping it so she can suck up the final dregs. The noise cuts the air as she hoovers up the whipped cream at the bottom. “You could have turned out worse.”
Oh kid, he thinks, his gaze straying to the window, watching the people pass by on street. You have no idea just how much worse I am.
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Summary: Tammi makes one last ditch attempt to regain custody of her son before Sammy leaves LA for good.
The baby is crying, he’s crying because his mom, Tammi is banging so hard on the window beside his car seat that Sammy’s terrified the pane is going to shatter, showering their nine month old in glass.
Sammy doesn’t know how the fuck she knew that he was leaving today, just that she turned up after he’d packed up their final belongings and got Nate situated in his car seat. His face and arms are scratched up from fending her off because she’s been trying to snatch the keys from his hand ever since he hit the central locking button to protect Nate from his mom’s onslaught.
“Tammi, you need to calm the fuck down.” He asserts, grasping both of her wrists in his hands so that she stops hitting him. He’s going to have bruises tomorrow, he can feel them blossoming already underneath the fabric of his shirt. “This is the exact reason they terminated your parental rights, you’re too stoned out of your mind and too unpredictable to be around him right now.”
That’s not the only reason. Sammy has a record a mile long of the neglect his son suffered at the hands of his mother. Everything from the dirty clothes and diapers, to the fact she’s left him locked in the house alone because she couldn’t stand the sound of him crying. Sammy had had to break a window to get into the grubby ground floor apartment because he could hear Nate’s screams ricochetting off the walls over the Alanis Morissette album she’d put on repeat to drown him out.
“You are not taking my son.” She rails at him through bared teeth as she tries to tear herself out of his grasp. “You are not stealing him from me.”
“That is not what is happening here and you know it.” Sammy responds trying to keep his voice as calm as he possible. There’s camera phones out now, their lenses fixed on the two of them. It’s just more evidence to pad the assault charge he plans on lobbying against her if she keeps this shit up. “The agreement is you go to rehab and we can talk about visitation after you get clean.”
“I am not an addict.” She spits in his face and Sammy releases her, causing her to stumble as he uses the back of his hand to wipe the glob from his cheek in disgust.
“I’m not having this argument with you.” He tells her, holding up his palms and stepping back to show he’s not fighting her anymore. “The court said I could take him to Shawnstown, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m taking him somewhere safe, away from the violence, the drugs, the gangs. Somewhere he can grow up in nature, where he can be happy-”
“He needs me, I’m his mother!”
And that phrase it pricks something inside of Sammy’s brain because the last thing Nate needs is this woman in his life, not after all the damage she’s already done to him.
“Tammi.” He says with as much ire as he can muster. “You almost fucking killed him.”
She recoils then, flinching like he’s slapped her and Sammy can’t find it in him to give a shit because the reason he has custody of Nate, the whole event that tipped the battle in his favour was the fact he spent two days in the hospital after ingesting a handful of magic mushrooms.
Instead of taking him straight to the E.D Tammi had decided to ride it out because a trip on that amount would only last six hours right?
For an adult sure, for a baby whose just figured out how to pull himself up and gone toddling straight into the stash she’d left on the table, it was enough to give him seizures from the toxicity.
He will never forget that night, her panicked phone call as he was about to get off shift, the sight of Nate’s tiny body spasming amongst the detritus of her apartment. The ambulance times had been slow because it was a Friday so Sammy had scooped up his son, cradling him to his chest before he threw himself into the back of his patrol car and Ben had booked it as fast as he could to the closest hospital.
“You were lucky.” He was told by the doctor once they’d administered the Midazolam to stop him seizing. “If you’d left it any longer it probably would have been fatal.”
He’s spent the night in and out of his son’s hospital room, talking to DCFS about taking out an emergency injunction against Tammi, his custody petition was agreed a few weeks later which left him with a decision to make.
Father or cop, he couldn’t do both.
Not with the way Nate was after his hospital stay. There had been no long lasting physical damage but his son had become clingy after that, crying for father if he was out of sight for more than a couple minutes.
He didn’t know that babies young could develop PTSD, but that’s what Nate had been diagnosed with after Sammy had taken him to the doctor because his eating patterns had changed and he disturbed more in his sleep.
“You need to be present for him. He needs constant physical reassurance over the next few months to remind him that he’s safe, to help him regulate his emotions.” The psychologist had told him after their session together. “That means routine, staying away from his triggers…”
And the biggest fucking trigger is standing there in front of him, mascara smeared underneath her eyes, her clothes just as dishevelled as her copper hair. His ex-wife looks like she’s just come off a bender, and the sad truth is she probably has.
“You almost killed our son Tammi.” He says again to really drive the point home as he takes his keys out of the front pocket of his jeans where he stowed them after she attacked him. “You need to get help-”
She sinks down onto the sidewalk, her legs going out from underneath her as she scrubs both palms over her haggard features. She was pretty once, vivacious full of life. He can’t believe the same strung out junkie he’s looking out now is the girl he married almost a decade ago. She’s always into weed, the occasional spliff to wind down after a bad day, it got out of control when she left him for Victor, when she decided to ‘open up’ her creativity.
“Don’t do this Sammy.” She begs him, her shrill sobs jangling every single last one of his nerves as she clasps her hands together as if in prayer. “Please don’t take our son away from me.”
“You left me no choice.” He tells her, his voice full of remorse as he unlocks the car and climbs inside. “I have to do what’s best for Nate.”
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Pope Cody – Mountain Man/Recluse/Part Time Lumberjack?
After leaving prison, he picks up his stash bag and disappears from the family into the wilds of Northern California to a small town called Shawnstown. He buys some land and an old cabin with the money he’s saved over the years from his takings and lives up there as a recluse, only coming to town when he needed something, leading him to meet his love interest Grocery Girl!
Grocery Girl is now running the store for her father who had a stroke and has begun selling homeopathic soaps, candles and lotions out of the store. She becomes the little ray of sunshine in his life.
Charlie Reid – Disgraced Chicago Police Officer/Current Police Chief
His mom was originally from Shawnstown and he returns there after he’s caught up in a scandal in Chicago taking up the mantle of Chief. Bored out of his mind he spends his evenings in the town bar and develops a thing for the bartender who ended up running her daddy’s bar after he took off and left her with a shit load of debt. She’s been trying to turn it around ever since.
Someone gets too rowdy or grabby he’s handing them their ass and showing them the door. He’s hanging around to make sure she locks up ok, escorting her to her car,
Sometimes there’s a illegal poker game, he lets it keep running and he ends up at the table and so does she.
Jack Abbot – SAR Medic/Poss Team Leader
Everytime the bells go, he’s like I’ve had it with these dumb mother fucker tourists but secretly he lives for the season because it keeps him busy. Possible ends up helping out at other places that require it seasonally like during campaign fires.
He’s well known in the community for being the grumpiest MF but he’s always helping out. His elderly neighbours porch slats are rotting through he’s out there helping, the school needs a first aider at a soccer game, he’s there with his sunglasses, a camping chair and cold brew.
Love interest is a search technician, the people with boots on the ground tracking experience.
Their vibe is nights camping out under the stars, making love by campfires and Jack learning to love again in the chaos of his SAR position. He tries to keep it low key because of town gossip and people are always trying to fix him up with their daughters.
Sammy Bryant – Owns The Outdoors Centre
Spends his time hiring out equipment and teaching people to climb, canoe and other activities like that. Gets very pissed off when people don’t follow the safety rules because he doesn’t want to call Jack for yet another tourist emergency.
Love interest is the new inn owner who has inherited the place and doesn’t know if she’s going to keep it. She’s just come out of a bad break up and is looking for a new start and is starting to fall in love with Shawnstown.
Clayton Emerson – Mayor
He was the Deputy Mayor until the previous mayor disappeared leaving the township almost bankrupt. He’s trying to shut down programs vital to the town to make sure that doesn’t happen as it will be horrendous for them when it does. Has become increasingly unpopular because of it.
His love interest is a savvy business manager hired by the town council to help him stop the town from falling into ruin.
With this all in mind... Are we doing this???
Yes! Let's fucking do it! - Let's build Shawnstown!
