Return of the Nativists

A great feast (with kosher option) follows the overdue duel. The Grave Digger’s meager stock of food is depleted. The revelry goes on until midnight.

A few of the more sensitive duelists notice a subtle difference between that night and all previous nights. After waking undisturbed, they realize that Rhetoric slept quietly, without barking once. Mid-morning, during the assembly of the public tribunal, this point is raised. Unfortunately it’s drowned out by the persistent drone of the Entomologist, whose pitch for a group lecture series (beginning with ‘Bugs of the Dueling Ground: Insects We See and Are Bitten By Every Day’) meets at first with indifference, then annoyance, then - if only to reclaim his silence - acceptance.

The Environmental Scientist calls the tribunal to order. As first point of business, two advocates are chosen, one for and one against the accused, with the Environmental Scientist acting as judge and the remaining duelists as jury (excluding his daughter the Employment Officer).

Arguments are made for and against the Grave Digger. The defense (Ergonomist) asks the jury to take into consideration the fact that there were no stockpiles of ammunition in the cabin, and that the .455 caliber of the Webley may in fact be so rare as to be difficult to purchase. The prosecutor (Environmental Lobbyist) lists the failures of the accused, especially in that he almost certainly manufactured the scarcity of the bullets only to prevent his daughter from going through with the duel.

It takes the jury under a minute to proclaim the guilt of the Grave Digger.

The Environmental Scientist takes off his reading glasses. The next step, he says carefully, is to determine a suitable punishment.

Hang the jerk! shouts the Expressman from the rear of the jury. The rest mutter in general agreement.

One consideration we should make, pipes the Ergonomist, is that as a Grave Digger he may be part of a later duel.

Grumbling.

The Ergonomist continues:

A few days ago, he says, as everybody knows, the Etymologist cracked secret to the particular succession of people that come to the grounds. Namely, they come in order of their occupation, arranged alphabetically. With this rule discovered, we could scientifically determine who had been the very last duelist. (Here he points to the Employment Officer.) Which of course gave rise to our outrage at the hidden insiderism and whatnot. What I’m getting at, in a round-about kind of way, is that the Grave Digger may be a duelist whose duel isn’t yet due.

Shuffling.

In which case the question becomes: is it proper for a group of duelists to kill a future duelist outside of a duel?

Everyone is very quiet.

Just hang him already! cries the Expressman.

All in favor of hanging the Grave Digger? asks the Environmental Scientist.

Most of the jury raises their hands.

And the nays?

Only a few.

Good, the Environmental Scientist sighs, happy to be done with the business if nothing else. Should we form a subcommittee to carry out the lynching?

They do, and a long strand of nylon rope is thrown over one of the lower branches of the great oak, noose at one end, now over the head and around the neck of the Grave Digger, who stands wobbling atop the Shaker table. The Evangelist consoles him with passages from the Bible on eternal life, etc.

Grave Digger, announces the subcommittee appointed executioner (Executioner), prepare yourself for death.

You’re all the ones to blame here! shouts the Grave Digger. Ingrates! I stood side to side with the caretaker when he was overcome by the nativists! It was in my right to take his place! Maybe I didn’t do no good, but I tried my damndest! You’re hands are dirty with the blood of an innocent man!

The Executioner kicks away the table. The Grave Digger drops. Deep gurgling as he struggles for breath, writhing with his hands behind his back.

His daughter faints. Suddenly Rhetoric’s ears perk.

As everyone watches the victim in his last throes – the rope breaks, a crack shoots from afar, and the Grace Digger falls to the ground. There’s a cry. The Entertainer points east to the forest. From the dark woods emerges Stetson, rifle across his shoulder, sack in another, dressed in tattered rags. As he walks others emerge – a whole hoard of shaggy nativists, half-naked, sinewy men with paint and tattoos and piercings covering their pale, mud-caked bodies.

As the duelists stand awe-struck in a circle about the half-hanged man, Stetson strides toward them. Just paces away, he throws the sack at the feet of the Environmental Scientist. It tumbles and its contents spill: from inside roll hundreds of fresh .455 caliber cartridges.

Stetson sweeps his eyes across the numerous. He speaks.

Let's resume the duel.

Riot

It’s as if the past twenty days an unseen pressure had been exerted on an unseen trigger. And now, just past the point of egress the latch let slip, a spring set loose, the hammer sped tight – and shot unleashed.

They speed from a place behind the tents at dawn. Some through corn field, some through bean patch, and some along the path directly, they make to the cabin, armed with the two pistols, stones, sticks, croquet mallets, spikes, tent poles, nylon rope. The Enologist, driven by some primal madness by the communal onrush, lets loose a war whoop even as he adjusts his clumsy bifocals in mid-stride behind the Epidemiologist.

Upon their descent a flight of hurled stones, croquet balls, and a kitsune statuette proceeds before them, thundering in a wave against the lain timber walls, the statuette and a two pound stone exploding through the south window. Then, as those that looped around through the cornfield to the east make their way, the east window is smashed. And also the west as those missiles from the bean field are hurled. There’s a great clamor of shouting and calls and cries, a terrible rancor and arms raised above the duelists heads in blind outrage. Until the Environmental Scientist steps forth with a pistol in one hand, a crude torch in the other, out from a small group that led the assault, at which point the crowd quiets.

From inside the cabin they hear the terrified sobbing of the Employment Officer.

Good morning, opens the Environmental Scientist. We were hoping you might have a free minute or two.

They hear shuffling. The Grave Digger’s head peeks out from under the windowsill, looking through the broken pane.

I might, he answers.

Great. We’d like to open a dialogue between our two parties.

What parties?

Well… we’re a mob. This is a riot.

Oh, says the Grave Digger.

Do you mind coming out with your arms behind your head? You and your daughter?

The Grave Digger thinks. I’d prefer not to, he says.

The Environmental Scientist meets in a huddle with several of the other duelists. The Estate Agent and Engineer give whispered counsel, others adding points here and there. Finally the Environmental Scientists nods and turns back to face the cabin.

Hate to say it, but if you don’t vacate the premises we’ll burn down the cabin.

Smoke you out, shouts the Estate Agent.

Nice use of parlance, notes the Environmental Scientist. The Estate Agent nods.

The cabin door opens. The Grave Digger and his daughter the Employment Officer step out with their hands behind their head. Both are in their sleeping clothes, the Employment Officer in a frightful pink nightie that rises mid-way above her ham hock thighs. The two survey the wide ring of duelists – all 19, even the diminutive linen-suited Evangelist, who circle the cabin – with trepidation. The Employment Officer’s cheeks run damp with tears, her thin lower lip sucked back in an obnoxious exaggeration of fear.

With the Environmental Scientist and the Engineer pinning them under the aim of their pistols, the Etymologist runs from behind and ties the writes of each in turn with short strands of nylon rope.

Now whaddya plan on doing with us? says the Grave Digger.

The Environmental Scientist turns to his lieutenants. First, he says, let’s see if we can’t organize a small group to ransack the cabin.

The Estate Agent, Engineer, and Expressman enter the cabin. They begin overturning furniture, throwing any objects that aren’t nailed down – books, radio equipment, cooking utensils – out the door and windows.

We ain’t got nothing, the Grave Digger cries.

The Esthetician hands the Environmental Scientist a few wrinkled sheets of foolscap. He thanks her, shuffles the pages, and puts on a pair of reading glasses that hitherto had been dangling from his broad neck. After quickly examining the paper, he reads a very brief manifesto that ends with a short list of demands, including (but not limited to) the option to quit from the duel altogether and return home.

But I bought you the croquet set, dinn I?

The sorriest croquet set I’ve ever seen, says the Entropologist from his spot in the bean patch. It didn’t even come with hoops.

What about my food? asks the Employment Officer.

We kept telling you that not everyone likes noodle casserole, explains the Entertainer. Especially when you make it three nights a week.

And I’m kosher! cries the Escort.

And she’s kosher, repeats the Entertainer.

So what do you plan on doing then, asks the Grave Digger wildly. Carry on by yourselves? Each to his will?

Actually, says the Environmental Scientist, we’ve voted to give governing authority to a provisional caretaker until the rightful caretaker returns.

Who’s leading?

The Environmental Scientist takes off his glasses. Well, he says, I am.

The Estate Agent comes out of the cabin with a pouch. She’s followed by her two companions. Inside the pouch she pulls a single gold coin.

No ammunition?

The Estate Agent shakes her head.

I told you they don’t make the caliber no more, the Grave Digger pleads.

Colleagues, why don’t we all gather around for an impromptu chat.

The duelists gather around the tied father and daughter.

Now I remember that a majority wanted to proceed with a kangaroo court to determine the guilt and punishment of our captives here. I know we decided against calling it that, but I can’t remember the other term –

Tribunal! someone shouts from the crowd.

Oh that’s right, brightens the Environmental Scientist, a tribunal. Anyway, before we do that –

Hang ‘em! someone shouts.

The Environmental Scientist raises his hand for peace. Anyway, he continues, before that let’s hold a vote on how we should go about recommencing the duel, this being our top priority. How many think that now with the Employment Officer under arrest, we should hold a duel – regardless of the fact that we only have four bullets.

Most people raise their hands.

And against?

A few vote against.

Yeas have it, then.

My daughter! cries the Grave Digger.

Well then. Let’s retire to the dueling grounds, smiles the Environmental Scientist.

The Employment Officer is untied. She’s given the choice of the two pistols, reluctantly chooses one, and stands on her mark. The other’s given to the Engine Driver, pale with fear. The crowd moves back. Some stand, some sit in the grass.

At your marks, calls the Entrepreneur (committee-appointed dueling official).

The duel be damned! the Grave Digger shouts.

Now march. They march.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

The Engine Driver falls dead. Everyone claps politely.

Better late than never, whispers the Engraver to the Exterminator, who just seconds ago arrived from the road. The Exterminator blinks.

First Duelist Assembly (Day 2)

Speeches Regarding to the first order of business, or

Arguments For and Against the End to Rhetoric

"Rhetoric Is All-Pervasive and Relentless In Its Drive to Keep Us from Having A Good Night's Sleep, and Should Therefore Die," by the Enologist

Friends, I don't pretend to know much. I'm just a simple Enologist. But even I know that men and women need sleep. It's one of the few true necessities in life. Unfortunately, all of us currently have an obstacle to this prime need. That obstacle is Rhetoric. It barks every night, almost all night, regardless of our efforts to quiet it.

"Rhetoric Protects Us from Unspeakable Evil, and Should Therefore Live," by the Estate Agent

I'll make this a quickie. After talking with the daughter of the man living in the cabin, it's come to be well known - even if it's not appreciated by some - that Rhetoric is just doing its job: protecting us from an evil that we can't imagine. I see some of you rolling your eyes. Well I believe her and I know a bunch of other do too, because I've talked to you in private. A lot of you. What happens if it's a band of rapists? I don't know, and I don't really want to find out. You know what'll help you with sleep? Taking naps during the day instead of playing chess all the time. Thanks.

Lots are cast. Result: Rhetoric lives.

Second order of business, or

Should we petition for the purchase of croquet equipment?

A speech is given by Entropologist. Fittingly, it's at first organized and compact, fraying as time goes by, until tapering off mid-sentence at some point forty minutes later, when the last person left (Engineer) stands up and walks to the creek for a bath.

All in favor? asks the Entropologist. Aye, he replies sadly.

Result: Petition for croquet equipment is a go.

The Ethologist arrives. He takes a small spot in a tent that's already filled to capacity.

The Grave Digger frets, looking to the grounds from his cabin window.

First Duelist Assembly

A new duelist arrived each day over the past fourteen days. Yet none dueled, and none died. All remain. They include, by order of appearance, the following:

Engineer
Engraver
Enologist
Entertainer
Entomologist
Entrepreneur
Entropologist
Environmental Lobbyist
Environmental Scientist
Epidemiologist
Ergonomist
Escort
Estate Agent
Esthetician

Today they live in a settlement described by its occupants as everything from a hilltop township (Entrepreneur) to an internment camp (Ergonomist). The muddy paths and beige canvas tents are reminiscent to some (Engineer, Entomologist, Environmental Scientist) of civil war campsites.

During the two weeks minor discoveries are made. The Engraver, for example, identifies the patterns worked into the brass pistol shells as hand-crafted, from several different people - not one man chosen exclusively for the task.

But this is the exception. Most of the interaction between the duelists is unimportant and easily overlooked; their conversations are predictable.

They have two main points of concern, namely:

1. The lack of dueling.
2. The quality of care provided by the Grave Digger and his obese daughter, the Employment Officer.

With regard to point of concern, the second:

Though the father and daughter, through exchange of the Krugerrands recovered, provided camping equipment, accouterments of all variety, and fair rations of fresh and canned food - the latter prepared thrice daily by the daughter - it in no way lives up to the combined standard of living expected from the growing number of professionals contained within the dueling grounds. The very fact that they are contained - not by force, but by a grudging sense of duty to the unspoken rules and an innate feeling of mutual competitiveness - also hinders efforts, in that they lack the liberty to purchase or seek the purchase of unnecessary items. The Entropologist, for example, would not let go of his desire to set up and organize a croquet tournament; this being impossible due to the lack of croquet equipment.

Thus resentment built. Blame was aimed squarely at the Grave Digger, whose promise of better provisions was believed to be as suspect as his sincerity in locating bullets to match the .455 caliber of two Webley revolvers. It didn't help that neither he nor his daughter reigned in Rhetoric, whose nightly vigil of the grounds - being the stalwart dog that he was - was enthusiastic to the extreme, full of mad barking and snarling often until daybreak.

With animosity growing in pitch with each new addition, with each passing day, in-fighting broke out within the camp. Duelists began forming petty alliances based largely on occupational lines: scientists congregated with scientists; artists with artists; businesspeople with businesspeople; and the escort with all and no one, each man vying for her attention regardless of his self-perceived station. She alone, it seemed, was content.

With regard to point of concern, the first:

Here two sides form. One half of the duelists believe that dueling should start immediately upon supply of ammunition, continuing throughout day and night until the duels are settled equally. The second believes that the duels should be spaced out in time. These sides aren't based along lines of occupation, but temperament.

Thus people argue and complain.

It's the Environmental Lobbyist (of all people) who finally rallies everyone together. In secret, he proposes the First Duelist Assembly. At the appointed time (noon, after lunch), the duelists quietly assemble apart from the Grave Digger and his daughter. After an hour, just before the Ethnologist arrives, they unanimously decide to hold a Second Duelist Assembly tomorrow.

The first order of business:

The delivery of speeches on whether or not to end Rhetoric.

The second order of business:

Petition for the purchase of croquet equipment.

Intermission

(Employment Officer v. Engine Driver) v. Engineer

Rhetoric is the scourge of woodland creatures. He barks all night, keeping the Engine Driver in a weary state of panic, unsure of who or what might be near. His sense of danger is heightened by lights from within Stetson's cabin to the north, the scurry of black figures blocking the light.

The barking stops at daybreak. The Engine Driver raises his tired eyes to the sky. It's clear, as pure as a lens.

The Employment Officer and her father the Grave Digger emerge from the cabin. They walk past the bean field - beans now sprouting - to the oak. They pass the Engine Driver. They walk to the most western cairn by the creek. There, under the most western rock, they discover the pouch of gold Krugerrands earlier hidden by the Detective.

Excitement hits father and daughter, enough to cause the daughter to buckle under wheezing bout of exhaustion. The pouch is concealed before the Engine Driver arrives, asking about the commotion.

Nothing, says the Grave Digger.

Nothing, seconds his daughter.

What about the duel?

The duel, the Grave Digger says, isn't possible.

The Engine Driver asks why.

The Grave Digger explains that only four bullets are left for the two guns. It's fine if you duel, but what's keeping you safe from the people what the dog barks at each night?

What does the dog eat?

They turn to the dog, lying nearby. He is thin.

You can shoot her, he says, pointing to his daughter, but you'll only have two bullets. Then what'll you fight the next day with?

The Engine Driver brushes each of his thick mustaches with petulant strokes. No, no, no, he says. He explains that this goes against the Unspoken Rules of the duel. One must fight the challenger.

We're already late, he says. What if another challenger comes?

Just then, then Engineer arrives. He waves from the oak.

Now?

The Grave Digger frowns. You'll wait. I need to find bullets.

And we? What should we do? What should we eat?

Wait. Just wait. We'll provide everything.

He shoves past the Engine Driver and to the cabin. Later, he starts his truck left idle by the road and drives to town.

Employment Officer v. Engine Driver

After catching her breath, soaked head to foot, the Employment Officer and Embalmer fought - and the Employment Officer won.

Her concern isn't one of ammunition scarcity, but of drying off. Or at least of getting out of the rain.

She walks north to Stetson's cabin and bangs on the door. The Grave Digger releases the crude latch and looks outside, careful to open just far enough to keep out the rain. He looks down on a miserable sight: the Employment Officer - her make-up running in streaks down the contours of her puffy face, flat dark hair pressed against the sides of her face and neck, blouse soaked, making apparent the outline of a gargantuan bra. He cries out.

My daughter!

Pee-paw!

The door opens, the Employment Officer enters, and thus begins a tearful reunion.

This is where you've been?

I'm sorry I left you, sugar lumps. I just couldn't bare to be without work, seeing you starve on your government salary.

Oh pee-paw!

Oh honey dough!

They embrace.

I'm all wet from the rain, and I killed a man.

Don't you ever speak of that! We'll get you clean and set.... We'll find a way.

When the Engine Driver arrives, he sees no one. He waits.

Embalmer v. Employment Officer

The Grave Digger tells the Embalmer that he's at a loss. He spent the previous night looking again through Stetson's cabin. No bullets were found, or anything relating to their manufacture. He checked the books on his shelves. Apart from one out-of-print manual on simple machine maintenance, all were fictional or on topics of esoteric knowledge. He tried the radio, but didn't understand how to interpret it.

We have four bullets left.

The Grave Digger shakes his head. Reluctantly, he suggests finding another means of dueling.

Like what?

Well... the Grave Digger says tentatively, I was thinking - knife fights.

The Embalmer balks.

Now just hear me out. I can get two buck knives from the warehouse depot. We'll keep 'em sharp. Winner's the one that doesn't bleed to death.

Out of the question.

Well excuse me for thinking outside the box, he says bitterly. He walks back to the cabin.

That evening the schnauzer barks like mad again. It drives the Grave Digger from the cabin, holding a weak flashlight for guidance in the semi-darkness of the quarter moon. He makes it to the oak, where the Embalmer sits awake, armed with both pistols.

Every night that dog's been barking, the Embalmer whispers. Tonight I heard voices from there. Sounds.

The Grave Digger flicks off the light. The schnauzer's barks let up momentarily. Just enough to hear the plaintive call of a loon.

That's no loon, the Grave Digger says. The Embalmer can hear the fear in his voice. It's them.

It only has two bullets left, says the Embalmer as he hands the Grave Digger one of the guns. But that should be enough.

You can't harm them! There're too many. The Grave Digger pushes the pistol back. He looks around nervously, flicks on the flashlight, and makes his way quickly to the cabin.

After an hour, the schnauzer returns to the oak.

The Employment Officer, a triple-chinned bureaucrat in an oversize blouse, stops three times to catch her breathe before settling down in the grass under the shade of the oak. Rain threatens, then breaks. The Embalmer tries hurrying her onto the field, but she demurs over and over.

Need to catch my wind, she says in a throaty drawl.

Embalmer v. Embriologist

The Embalmer tags along as the Grave Digger prepares the burial of the Electrician. The two men, possibly by some unspoken occupational connection, develop a quick camaraderie.

At least he went quickly, the Embalmer says.

The Grave Digger, flipping through the Electrician's overstuffed wallet, looks up. Never seen one linger, he realizes.

The schnauzer lies nearby, gnawing on a stick he found by the edge of the forest.

They talk. At some point during the course of conversation the Embalmer mentions the shortage of bullets. The Grave Digger walks to the oak and inspects the guns. Three cartridges are chambered in each pistol. A few empty casings litter the area around the table. He looks in the forest dweller's dusty satchel and sees more empties of the same caliber.

We can't go on without ammunition, states the Embalmer. It's not like we can change weapons; it's duel by pistol; it's part of the unspoken rules.

None up in the cabin either, murmurs the Grave Digger.

The Embrilogist arrives on time the following morning. Dark clouds hang over the sky. She walks to the oak. The schnauzer gallops up to meet her, sniffing her hand, before walking off. She meets the Embalmer.

Electrician v. Embalmer

That night the schnauzer, let out of the cabin by the Grave Keeper, barks wildly into the forest. It keeps the Electrician up for most of the night.

He's bleary-eyed and rumpled when the Embalmer arrives.

The Embalmer inspects the pistols. Neither chamber's full, he says.

They look in the drawer under the table, but the drawer's empty.

Electrician v. Elevator Mechanic

The Electrician digs out the dip under his lip, spits out the detritus left, and repacks a fresh wad. He turns to the Grave Digger, who watches from nearby.

Trying to quit smoking, he explains.

The Grave Digger drags away the body of the Electrical Engineer.

That afternoon the Electrician heads to the cairns by the creek with a pistol and a pocket full of bullets. He stands ten paces away and fires. A small rock on top of the eastern cairn flies off with a crack, leaving a whisp of dust. He swivels and snaps off another shot. The rock atop the center cairn darts off. He swivels again - and hits a third rock atop the western cairn.

This process repeats until all the shells in his pocket are gone. The only cartridges left are the six in the remaining pistol, and four in the drawer.

The next day the Elevator Mechanic arrives. He's a lout of a man with a trimmed goateee. He wears stained jeans and a t-shirt.

My gun's missing a round, he says, inspecting the pistol he chose.

Don't worry about it, the Electrician says. I'll probably kill you the second we open fire.

Electrical Engineer v. Electrician

He kneels and checks the wire.

It just wasn't made to withstand the elements, says the Electrical Engineer. Plastic holds up better than rubberized cloth insulation, but even that wears down with long-term exposure to the sun.

He stands.

It's fine now, but won't be within a year or two.

The Grave Digger and the Electrical Engineer loiter in the shade behind Stetson's cabin, beneath the radio tower. That - the tower - was what attracted the Electrical Engineer in the first place. Then, on making friends with the Grave Digger, his attention turned to the antique radio inside the cabin. And later, the antique wire between the cabin and the well.

They follow the wire to the well.

Description of the well:

The exterior is square in shape - 3' x 3' x 1 1/2' - and built of hand-hewn, worn timber. The interior walls are lined with very fine, polished concrete, slightly age-worn. There's a timber lid with a rough iron ring nailed in the center. This, propped by one side of the well, covers a great engine, modified - through makeshift means - into a crude pump: a rubber tube runs down the well, flows into an aluminum canister, and another tube flops out. Eroded earth marks the soil around the outlet tube. Weeds thrive around the well, now mostly hidden beneath the tall stalks of surrounding corn.

The antique wire runs over the timber and down the side.

The two men peer over the lip. The grey concrete darkens as the well deepens - till it meets the black of the abyss. No reflection of light, no indication of a bottom. Yet there are - as the Electrical Engineer notices on squatting - distinctly carved hand holds against the north side of square, leading down.

The Grave Digger, working on a bit of inspiration, drops a pebble. Two long seconds pass before they hear a plunk.

The Electrical Engineer turns to the Grave Digger. The Grave Digger shrugs.

The next day the Electrician arrives. He wears the light blue jumpsuit of his trade, and a pocket of dip packed under his lip.

Editor v. Electrical Engineer

The Editor shouts and curses. After working ten hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year without break for the past fifteen years, being disconnected from his magazine is brutally painful.

Why the hell don't you get reception? he shouts at his cell phone.

He chucks it against the tree. He pouts for a second. Then rushes up to the trunk to recover the mess of wiring and plastic. He frantically tries mashing everything back together. Finally, saddened, he drops the heap on the table.

Bah!

He scratches his forehead. Looks around.

Not a bad place to retire, he says finally, crossing his arms. A man could spend a lot of quiet time shooting crows up here.

The Grave Digger walks to the grounds bury the body of the Economist. The schnauzer walks beside him.

What's with the no headstones? You people don't identify bodies?

The Grave Digger looks puzzled.

It's not a complaint, but it is.

He wipes his nose, then reaches up to an undefined spot 100 feet in the air.

I want a monument -- in the old tradition. I'm talking about an obelisk. Black! And I want you to help me make that happen, old timer. You and me.

I'm 37.

We're best friends now. Like Romulus and Rhemus. Brothers? Yeah, brothers. Twins!

The Grave Digger grunts.

Thaddaboy, spoken like a man. Joking about the obelisk, but tell me: what's the gravy on his stake? Don't hold back, I want it all. In twenty words or less.

The Grave Digger fills him in.

Huh, says the Editor. Now I know why she was so eager for me to send a crew here. I would have, too, if not for cut backs. And lack of an address. You know where they found her signal? Bounced off the ionosphere! Couldn't trace it, thought it was a telecommunications relay off Tongo Tongo.

The Grave Digger starts digging.

So you going to give him a headstone? I'll find him a headstone.

He does: he fetches a rock from the cairn by the creek.

The two men work for a long while together. The Grave Digger relents to a headstone for the Economist. Without a name - What did he say his name was? Ed? Burl? the Editor asks himself, brow in a knot. - they can only offer a simple cross.

The next day, when the Electrical Engineer arrives, the Editor's picked out the biggest rock from the creek. He's in the process of rolling it to the burial ground.

Economist v. Editor

After winning the duel, the Economist quietly stands over the burial of the Ecologist, then retires to the base of the oak.

It's there that he sees the dusty leather pouch of the forest dweller, and carefully inspects the inside of the bag. Each of the items he lays out on the table. Of special fascination is the marble bust of the plain-looking woman, dressed in homespun 19th-century garb, and the bullet cartridges.

Removing two of the primed cartridges, he reloads both pistols. He examines the hot, used shells just discarded and sees that they - like the other empty shells in the primitive's satchel - are decorated with light, ornately patterned etching. Similar, he notes, to the patterns of a certain indigenous baskets.

Curious, he finds and opens the small drawer under the circular tabletop. Four cartridges roll clumsily into view. He examines all four. Each show similar markings to the cartridges and empty shells from the satchel.

He calls out to the Grave Digger.

Where was this satchel found?

The Grave Digger thrusts his shovel into the loose earth and walks to the oak. He nods at items on the table.

Found alls that on the body of a nativist. Another one shot him a few days ago. He was threatening, spying.

Even so, voices the Economist softly, I think the death may have lead us to a scarcity.

He look down, watching the cartridges roll in his fleshy palm.

How many have come before me? How many duels have you seen?

The Grave Digger swallows. He looks off. He can't remember the number off hand, he can't remember their faces. It's been a month now, maybe more.

Tens, dozens, hundreds?

Dozens, dozens on dozens.

And where have the bullets come from for each duel? I didn't bring bullets. The caretaker?

No. Never him. Never me either. We never brought none.

Someone did. I have a feeling it was the primitives to the east. They've maintained a pre-industrial cottage industry, a cycle of manufacture. Last night I heard the dog barking into the forest. Why they insist on secrecy, on replenishing the ammunition by night, is a mystery. But it explains why the man who was killed was lurking by the border, and why he had these in his pouch.

I was there, says the Grave Digger fearfully, pinching each word. He points. Up in the woods.

So have I, says the Economist sympathetically.

The Grave Digger walks off.

That night, again, the dog barks at the border of the forest.

The Editor's a thin, severe man with a keen eye and a quick tongue. He wears a sweat-stained blue Oxford tucked into a pair of khaki slacks.

Where is she? he spits. Where's my Correspondent?

The Economist tells him he has no clue to whom the Editor refers.

Called from here, I'm sure of it. Just like she described.

The Editor takes a look around again, then squares up.

Just like she said: right from the movie. Right from Swingo!. Tree, creek, cabin, woods, hill. Right from Swingo!.

Ecologist v. Economist

It wasn't the rationalization given by the Drill Instructor that brightened the Ecologist's mood, but the fact that the Drill Sergeant sought to rationalize - regardless of his oversimplified and (to the mind of the Ecologist) laughable reasoning. It brightened his mood because it seemed to prove a long-held belief proposed by his academic colleague, the Philosopher (Continental): namely, that all actions (including his) are necessarily unconscious biological reactions to stimuli, and not open to choice, regardless of the feeling that we are subject to chose, itself an illusion.

Thus, at the time, the Ecologist felt more detached from matters of good and evil.

Except now, post-duel, he doesn't; he feels tremendous guilt and grief on looking at the splayed body of the Drill Sergeant beneath him, and the schnauzer nuzzling the Drill Sergeant's hand, as if to coax a pat.

This is rotten, he says.

The Grave Digger buries the body and begins straightening the tumult he caused to Stetson's cabin. The schnauzer, after the burial, sits on the Drill Sergeant's grave. Then, later, joins the Grave Digger. After cleaning the cabin and righting the furniture, the Grave Digger takes residence.

The next day when the Ecologist and Economist meet they, knowing each other in passing from their time at the university, discuss the one thing that happily separates them from unfortunate aspects of reality: their fields of study.

I wrote a paper, says the Ecologist, on the natural reforestation of abandoned farmland and its effect on large mammal populations. It took place in this region. With almost unrestricted private funding we hired a team of townies to act as porters. They carried the observational equipment, the kits used to build electronic monitoring stations throughout the woodlands. We came under attack twice, each time losing a few dozen porters - but more tragically, the wife of my good friend, the group's Ethnologist. But the data we collected - before the stations were found and taken down - showed what I'd expected: an exponential increase in the population. Deer, fox, wolves, bears - in profusion.

As luck would have it, the Economist also did research in the area as a student:

It was just a simple market study, but it played on some historic curiosities: the origin of current day intra-tribal trading amongst anarcho-primitive forest communalists. All communities are intrinsically - often religiously - shy to trade with other communities, especially of different socialist ideological bents (Noyesians, for example, would rather die than exchange with New Harmonists), and of course the ritual patterns of warfare and revenge killings, but they will under certain material conditions. Usually if both parties' receive a mutual, favorably interpreted omen, and if the necessities of each are high enough, and if armed raiding is strategically inadvisable. Some tribes are different than others, of course: some never trade; some have, over years, ritualized the event, leading to regular market gatherings reminiscent of the standard extra-tribal rendezvous, held in different mountain glades each summer season. But these are usually among the more southern tribes, near the coal mining regions. We documented three communities over two years, all in the hills and forests to the east. Facinating people, in a way, however morally reprehensible.

The Ecologist agrees.

Imagine living without order, part of a pack. Regardless of whether I agree with them or not, it's not difficult to see why colleagues started the petition to reclassify the communalists as a particular sub-human species. They way they act, they might as well be studied as animals.

My last lecture, in fact, touched on that topic exacly: I used them as an example of a culture without a stable division of labor.

The Ecologist is about to extol the freedom he and the Economist have to chose their own paths - when he suddenly remembers the Drill Sergeant's act of rationalization. He's thrown into an unexpected spat of doubt.

Drill Sergeant v. Ecologist

The Drill Sergeant doesn't bury the body of the forest dweller, but lays him beside the Dyer. As he walks to the cabin in search of a shovel he sees a haggard figure in the far distance, walking through the corn field east from the road. Only his head's exposed. His face barely peeks from beneath a frayed straw hat.

Still wary from the previous encounter, he pulls a pistol from under his belt. The schnauzer starts barking. Yet the man walks on, pushing through the rows of burnt, water-starved, neck-high corn. The Drill Sergeant steps behind the south wall of the cabin, partly hiding from sight.

Finally the man steps from the corn. The Drill Sergeant turns the corner, pistol aimed at the man's chest. The dog stops barking.

I'm no enemy, says the man. He slowly reaches up and takes off his hat. It's the Grave Digger. A bandage runs over his left eye. He looks at the Drill Sergeant, then the dog.

After explaining who his is and his function - and proving it by naming the location of the shovel, left laying behind tall weeds against the east wall of the cabin - the Drill Sergeant lowers his gun. The dog lays in the shade of the cabin, panting from the oppressive, windless heat.

How many duels you won?

The Drill Sergeant answers. Two. The Grave Digger nods. He looks down at the dog with dispassionate eyes. He looks over at the cabin, torn asunder, looted. It's then that the Drill Sergeant smells the atmosphere of stale liquor and cheap cigar around the man. He stiffens.

Where were you the last two days? he asks curtly. It's summer. Bodies rot as fast as they drop.

The Grave Digger shakes his head. The Drill Sergeant narrows his eyes, licks his parched lips.

I shot a forest dweller -- a nativist lurking at the perimeter.

This is the first news that perks the Grave Digger's interest, that snaps him from his torpor. He asks to be taken to see the body. He almost forgets to take the shovel.

When they reach the body the Grave Digger lowers himself slowly, with cautious movement from the still-painful wounds and bruises, onto one knee, scattering a swarm of flies. He looks at the face. He looks at the tattoos on the cheekbones, the crude ouroboros on the man's arm.

They were all masked when they took us, animal masks. They took us to the village, with a dog. I don't remember. We were knocked out. Not longhouses but timber with gabled roofs. Children playing. Women. They took him away. Separated us. Then they washed me head to foot. I was terrified. I struggled. You've heard the stories, you understand.

The Grave Digger stops. He pauses, then stands.

I don't recognize him, he says. I saw too many, or not enough.

We need to call a Forest Ranger, says the Drill Sergeant. We'll go together.

The Grave Digger shakes his head. They're a joke. And what's more, no one knows the patterns of jurisdiction up here. A professional Assessor couldn't draw lines between the stakes. Less than any other part of the wilderness.

We'll go anyway.

The Grave Digger looks the Drill Sergeant in the eye. You're not leaving the grounds, he says. You duel.

The Drill Sergeant thinks better of objecting. He walks back to the oak. The Grave Digger takes to burying the dead. Notably, he drags the forest dweller north to the red rock, where the earlier sacrificial boy was buried.

The day turns to night, and night to morning.

The Ecologist, a young, awkward man in khakis and a gold shirt, arrives alert yet quietly distressed, like a patient calling on a dentist for a tooth that can't be short of needing pulled.

You don't look proud to be here, son, the Drill Sergeant barks.

The Ecologist explains the loss of others at the university. And his studies. Then, as if only then waking to the Drill Sergeant's statement, asks what he should feel proud of.

This is an institution, states the Drill Instructor. The validity of it is obvious. It doesn't matter if you or I have ever heard of it. The importance of some things are so great as to never be known. Yet that doesn't dissuade good men from doing their duty. From duty comes a sense of pride. Good men are proud of the duty they do to strengthen the whole.

This speech causes the Ecologist's mood to brighten significantly. He accepts the duel with enthusiasm.

Drill Sergeant v. Dyer

The Drill Sergeant pushes his way past the chaos of books, clothes, radio equipment, paper, and overturned furniture, and into Stetson's cabin. After an hour of straightening and searching, he finds a thin parcel containing carefully layered strips of pemmican. He steps from the cabin.

Two strips are thrown on the ground in front of the schnauzer, who gobbles them up. The Drill Sergeant takes a strip for himself. He re-wraps the parcel, tosses it back into the cabin, and, using the strip he saved, spends the rest of the afternoon teaching the schnauzer to salute.

The dog's a fast learner.

Later that night, as the Drill Sergeant bunks down beside the oak, and the dog close beside him, the schnauzer stands, ears perked high, looking in the direction of forest.

Enemy, boy?

The dog salutes.

Good damn, the Drill Sergeant whispers. He stands, holstering one pistol in his trouser, holding the other. He walks slowly in the direction of the forest. The schnauzer, alert and on point, walks a few paces ahead.

As they near close to the edge of the forest, the hair on the back of the schnauzer stands on end. It lowers his stance, growling deeply. Without warning the Drill Sergeant fires ahead, in the direction the dog faces. There's an anguished cry from behind the bush.

The dog lunges, fangs barred, into the woods. There's a great struggle, snapping of branches, barking - and wailing from an unseen man. The Drill Sergeant, unsure of the dog, unable to push into the pitch black envelope of branches and leaves, calls out for the animal. The struggle ends. The man stumbles off. The dog runs back to the Drill Sergeant.

From the dog's mouth the Drill Sergeant takes a torn, dusty leather satchel. Beads and simple decoration adorn the front, the band.

The Drill Sergeant opens the prize. In the light of the full moon he looks inside: a small light blue glass bottle, half full of bathtub gin; a handful of highly decorated, engraved .455 Webley brass shells; a pouch full twenty or thirty live .455 bullets, undecorated; a small marble bust of a nameless woman of plain appearance; an elk mask; and a crude, hand-printed pamphlet, in a language the Drill Sergeant doesn't recognize.

We'll find him tomorrow, he tells the dog.

The next morning, after eating the last of the pemmican, they walk into the forest, at the spot of confrontation the night before. Splotches of dry blood flower the ground. The schnauzer, excited by the memory, runs frantically around the spot, whining, pushing his way deeper into the forest, looking back at the Drill Sergeant as if pleading to be followed.

The Drill Sergeant, after a careful scan of the area for more objects, follows the dog. Not forty yards away, slumped over beneath the trunk of a great ash, sits an obscured figure of a man.

The Drill Sergeant and dog stand silently for a few seconds before advancing quickly, pistol out, pressed against the man's head.

The man's dead.

He's the same native that greeted the Distiller, but with two holes in his torso - one in his chest, one in his gut - and deep bite marks on his arms and legs. The only distinguishing mark, apart from the wounds, are the pattern and nature of the tribal tattoos that mark the the man's body: inked notches on his cheeks, a self-consuming snake on the upper right bicep, an obscure double-zodiac running vertically between his shoulder blades.

The Drill Sergeant drags the body from the forest to the grounds in time to meet the Dyer, a hearty young woman with a worried expression.

Drayman v. Drill Sargeant

Wake up you sniveling nancy!

The Drayman snaps awake. He'd been dozing in Stetson's chair. He looks up a thick-necked bull of a man, face red with sun and anger. The man tells him to get up. The Drayman stands.

You think you're man enough to stand across from me on the dueling ground? Disgrace. Look at yourself! Go ahead!

The Drayman looks down. What he sees isn't much different than what he's seen before: he's an unfit man in his early 30s, belly hanging like a sack of wet clothes, brown collared shirt untucked, third button missing, jam stain on his left lapel. He reeks of sweat, horse stables and gin. His shorts are unfashionably long, unattractively beige, irrevocably grease-spattered. Wiry black hair sheathes two pale, porcine calves, both devolving to plump feet, unclipped toes straining against the plastic thongs of Hawaiian patterned flip flops. He's neither a prime exhibit of communal success, nor one of independent free will. He's a shlub.

You know who would be a better opponent? That dog right there!

The Drill Sargeant points to the German schnauzer. It stands at perfect attention, legs slightly back, docked tail stiff and upright, ears alert, head in squared and straight, coat glossy.

The Drayman feels a pang of jealousy.

I bet you don't even have a goddamn job!

I do, he swallows. I'm Drayman for a licensed gin concern.

The Drill Sargeant narrows his eyes knowingly. Bullshit! You're a nativist bootlegger!

The Drayman makes to protest, but realizes that he's still wearing the red ribbon around his arm. He looks down.

Pathetic, hisses the Drill Instructor. How do you wake up in the morning?

Usually hung over.

Shut up!

The Drayman folds his hands sheepishly.

Tell me who's in charge around here!

The Drayman mentions the Grave Digger, but says he doubts whether he's in charge of much. He mentions the wounds, and the story of a kidnapping.

Bet they did it hopped up on blood and gin.

I don't know. Studies say it's a mistake to assume that all tribal communities'll fall unconditionally violent when exposed to gin.

The Drill Sargeant, with a fist curled up at his waist, lands a short blow to middle of the Drayman's gut.

Oof!

Now march your dimpled ass over to the oak, pick out your weapon. and try not to rub your idiocy onto this goddamn prince of a dog in passing!

The Drayman stumbles off. The dog watches him from the corner of his eye. After the Drayman's a few yards off, the Drill Sargeant leans over and inspects the schnauzer, from head to anus. He gives the animal two firm pats on the head in appreciation.

Drayman v. Dressmaker

With the Grave Digger convalescing in Stetson's cabin, the Drayman drinks: he pours himself a liberal glass of gin and cold creek water, sits in the chair outisde Stetson's cabin, and falls asleep to the sound of bats whirling unseen above his head. The schnauzer falls asleep beside him.

He wakes, startled, to the sound of toppling furniture, thrown books, the crash of electronics. The dog bolts upright and barks.

Inside the cabin, the Grave Digger searches madly. The Drayman stands and watches from outside. He yawns.

What are you doing?

Looking for something.

Oh.

The Grave Digger continues his rampage.

Mind if I ask what you're looking for?

Yes.

Oh.

The Drayman considers the choices before him. Charactaristically, he takes the path of least resistence: he sits back down in the chair. He leans back, pulls his long billed cap over his eyes, and tries his best to fall back into gin-soaked sleep.

In this he is successful. Such is the genius of the Drayman.

When he wakes the next morning the Grave Digger's gone. The mess he made of the cabin is still there. It's terrible. Whether he found what he was looking for or not is a mystery.

When the Dressmaker arrives the Drayman's on his second glass of creek water and gin of the morning.

The schnauzer yawns.

Dramaturge v. Drayman

Barking's heard late that night. The next morning the Dramaturge finds the dog sniffing at something to the east. He walks over and spots the Grave Digger sprawled unconscious on the grass by the edge of the forest, his shirt ripped, his body bruised and lightly scarred, but otherwise intact. After having a mug of creek water dumped over his head, the Grave Digger wakes with an annoyed start.

This world doesn't need more hobos, says the Dramaturge severely.

The Grave Digger, too sore of mind and body to snarl, smacks his dry lips. He musters enough energy to sit up, pulling his legs into a crossed position, head slung low.

The schnauzer watches expressionless from a few feet away.

Get more water, mouths the Grave Digger.

The Dramaturge thinks of balking, but gets the distressed man his water from the creek. He drinks quickly, then leans back.

I'm no drunk, says the Grave Digger.

The Dramaturge asks what happened. The Grave Digger shakes his head in a disappointed way, as if trying to shaming a student out of recalcitrance.

I don't know what they did with him....

With who?

The Grave Digger pulls on the Dramaturge's sleeve. He looks up, eyes bloodshot. It's all a game of chess! he seethes.

The Dramaturge eventually helps the Grave Digger to his feet. He carries him to the cabin, where he's bedded.

The Drayman arrives the next monrning, greeted by the schnauzer and the Dramaturge, while the Grave Digger sleeps. The Drayman wears a band of red ribbon around his left arm, and smells of gin.

Draftsman v. Dramaturge

The Draftsman, using pencil and the blank pages of a notepad left on Stetson's desk, sketches the growing bodies of the dead.

He recognizes this as a somewhat morbid activity, but chalks it up as cathartic.

I did just kill a man in an honorable duel, he says sadly. What better way to extend his mortality - if even so feebly - than through art.

Unfortunately, being so habituated to the style of technical draftsmanship, regardless of how many attempts the Draftsman makes to represent the Doorman's grotesque corpse with emotion and nuance, the image looks less like a page from the notebook of Caspar David Friedrich than the preliminary spec for a high-end anamatronic car test dummy.

Sleep on, sweet prince, sighs the Draftsman, regarding his work tearfully.

Next morning:

The Dramaturge's flight from the city is cancelled due to heavy rainstorms. He waits in the airport for close to an eternity. When he arrives to the dueling grounds he's not interested in anything apart from dueling.

Doorman v. Draftsman

The rain continues after the duel. The Doorman walks across the field, past the bean field, through the mud, to the door of Stetson's cabin. He wipes his shoes off as best as possible and walks inside, closing the door after him. The schnauzer scratches at the door, barking loudly for over an hour before the Doorman - until then sitting quietly, looking out the window to the grounds, as his profession would have him do - until he breaks, finds old clothes to dry the dog, and lets him in.

Not much of a reader, he ignores the books on the shelves. He turns his attention to the radio. After finally discovering how to turn it on, he listens for a short while to the cryptic radio station before turning the large dials to the public riot blotter broadcast. He listens to this before eating the remainder of the cold food left by the Dog Walker, then falling asleep.

That night the rain stops.

The next morning he and the Draftsman look west - up the mountain - to a great strands of black smoke drifting like ribbons above the horizon. They issue at different frequencies, at different lengths.

The dog scratches its ear.

I used to have a doorman, says the Draftsman suddenly, when I was a kid.

The Draftsman answers the Doorman's questioning look by pointing to a small union pin on the lapel of Doorman's shirt. The Doorman looks down and laughs.

I forgot I was wearing it! he cries.

The Draftsman asks him to recite the Doormans' Credo. The Doorman, flattered, indulges him.

The Doormans' Credo:

We are the Doormen.
And I am only the least of the Doormen.
From hall to hall there is one Doorman after another,
Each more powerful than the last.
The third Doorman is already so terrible
That even I cannot bear to look at him.
If you are so drawn to it,
Just try to go through the door
despite my veto.
But take note:
I am powerful.
I am the Doormen.

The Draftsman applauds. The Doorman takes a bow.

Dog Walker v. Doorman

After the duel the air cools. Minutes later a storm breaks.

Seeking shelter, the Dog Walker runs to Stetson's abandoned cabin. Finding the door unlocked, he enters, leading the schnauzer inside.

After lighting the antique franklin stove, he finds dried meat and rice in mason jars on nearby shelves. He cooks a simple dish a pot, using water from a large clay pitcher. After a long search through Stetson's library, he chooses The Republic, sits at the desk before the radio and notepads. He reads the first part of the prologue - Descent to the Piraeus - before nodding off just as Cephalus speaks on death and his vain regrets.

The Dog Walker sleeps atop Stetson's cot, waking occasionally from thunder - and terrible dreams of Socrates, in a fit of madness, banging against the cabin door.

The rain continues throughout the morning.

The schnauzer barks from inside the cabin as the Doorman arrives. The Dog Walker, under an umbrella he finds, walks to greet the man. He and the Doorman shake hands. They know each other, coincidentally enough, in passing. The Doorman stands in the foyer of a great condominium in the city, housing the Newspaper Magnate, whose two poodles are walked by the Dog Walker.

Whose dog is that? asks the Doorman, motioning toward the schnauzer.

The Dog Walker tells him about the events of the previous day, the maniacal man that fell from the forest, the story of a kidnapping, and of other dogs.

Seven in total, he says.

You see all seven?

No, answers the Dog Walker, it's on the dog's tag.

He shows the Doorman. There, on a small metal tag on its collar, is a mark of identification:

2 of 7: "Rhetoric"

Rhetoric?

The dog looks up at the Doorman expectantly. The Doorman pats its head.

The Dog Walker thinks of telling him the other part of the story, the request to search out the other missing dogs, but decides against it. Bad enough they have to duel in the rain, he thinks, let alone brave the forest.

Dogcatcher v. Dog Walker

He strides up to Stetson and the Grave Digger, both of whom are talking by the cabin, and states his peace:

I made a vow to that man over there. I said I'd find the dogs. I'm headed into the forest.

The two men blink. Are you sure? asks Stetson.

There's a natural hierarchy. It goes: man, dog. When a dog runs from under man's hand, do you know what happens? They group. Then dog becomes wolf. Then the hierarchy? It flips. Wolf... then man. I'm here to prevent wolves from dominating man. That's the true role of a Dogcatcher. Those dogs out there are already grouped. I have to catch them.

The Grave Digger looks to Stetson. Stetson strokes his mustache, then collects his Mauser from the cabin. We'll go with you, he says.

The Grave Digger hiccups, shocked. But they're tied, he stammers.

Easier to catch, says Stetson.

The Dogcatcher shakes his head. Not necessarily; that's a popular misconception.

It's your corpse, Stetson says plainly. We'll recover it together. You'll get all the loot, gold or otherwise.

The Grave Digger shakes his downcast head, rubbing his hands nervously, miserably.

They set out from the grounds armed only with Stetson's express rifle. (The Dogcatcher was expressly forbidden from bringing the pistols, which Stetson insisted must stay on the table.) Entering the forest at the small game run used earlier by the Correspondent, they set into the dark embrace of the woodland.

The great canopy of virgin wood blocks most light. It's cooler in the forest, but windless and humid. Bramble and dry shrubs catch their trousers as they maneuver over and under fallen branches, trunks. Birds chirp overhead. The three men walk steadily, dry leaves crackling underfoot. The only discordant sound comes from the Grave Digger who, trailing a few feet behind Stetson and the Dogcatcher, curses under his breath every time the Dogcatcher lets a branch slaps across his face.

In short time they come to the way-point. It's empty, but the fire pit is uncovered. Inside, the embers are still smoking. Bits charred debris mingle with the ring of ash. Signs of struggle show: the overhand is damaged, undergrowth is kicked.

They came through here, says the Dogcatcher. He walks behind the great boulder, the glacial erratic, and returns a second later with a blood-spattered collar. He shows it to the others: it's been cut cleanly. He reads from the tag, still attached, listing the dog's name:

7 of 7: Astronomy.

Someone pulled the dead dog from the group, he says. And ate it. The bones are stacked in a heap behind the boulder, with others...

The woman? asks Stetson.

No, not big enough. A buck, I'm guessing.

The Grave Digger wipes his hands. Well, he says, time to get back.

It'll make them faster, says the Dogcatcher. More efficient without the dead weight.

Suddenly Stetson lunges, pushing aside the Grave Digger. An arrow snaps past them, just missing the spot where the Grave Digger stood. It plunges into the trunk of an ash. The Dogcatcher crouches. Stetson kneels, rifle aimed. Behind a blind strand, they hear the soft pads of an expert woodsman - running further east, deeper into the forest.

Run! shouts Stetson.

The two men follow Stetson as he flies through the brush, eventually hitting a second trail - this one wider, obviously used often. At times, when the path straightens occasionally, they can see the back of the pursued: a lithe, shirtless figure, light skinned, hair short and knotted. They follow until the Grave Digger cries out for them to stop, and they stop. The figure runs off ahead.

He wheezes, hands on his knees. Cramp, he says. He mashes his hand against the side of his gut.

The dogs ran along this trail, pants the Dogcatcher. Natural run. And here -

He picks proof from a nearby branch: a tuft of black fur.

After the Grave Digger rests, they continue on. They walk for a very long time. At regular intervals, as if markers, they come across roughly hewn wood idols, some male, some female, of obvious gendered appearance, all with exaggerated genitalia. Beneath these small but conspicuous roadside gods, small offerings of acorns and squirrel bones are laid.

Several hour pass before the path opens wider, wide enough for two men to comfortably walk abreast. It isn't too long after this that they hear the clear sound of water, of a forest creek. Verily, the path meets the creek: ancient erosion setting a gash in the stone of the mountain, the water runs fast and narrow, deep in its mossy gorge. The men follow the path, which follows the gorge, up a steep climb. When the climb ends, it opens to a clearing... and shock:

There, in the center of a great flowering glade, stands a fallen circular temple of white marble - from which the pure creek springs.

Amazing, whispers the Grave Digger.

Stetson shows no sign of this being the first time he's seen the place. In fact, it seems expected.

The Dogcatcher takes a dog whistle from his jeans. He blows. Immediately, wild barking issues from behind the temple. The men walk forward. They round the site to a fallen edge, the side of an old archway now collapsed, and see a gruesome sight: five remaining dogs stand around the battered and half-eaten corpse of their master, all tied to a stone ring against the outer wall of the temple.

There were seven at first, says the Grave Digger. Seventh was shot. But the sixth?

Neither of the other men answer.

The Dogcatcher quiets the dogs and slowly wins their favor. Sated and tired, they acquiesce to his advances. It isn't long before their leads are untied and the dogs are split between the three men: the Dogcatcher holds one, the others two each.

We have just enough time to get back, says Stetson. We have to go quickly.

But just as this is said a great and horrifying flood of wailing rises from the arc of forest before them. The wailing rises in volume in pitch, terrifying to the extreme, the dogs snarling and snapping. The Grave Digger falls, weeping, hands against his ears, to his knees.

Stetson, rifle darting back and forth between dark spots against the screen of trees, has yells back to the Dogcatcher:

Run!

The Dogcatcher flees, dog by his side - turning in time to see an avalanche of masked warriors descend from the forest. Stetson lets off two shots before he and the Grave Digger are engulfed under a sea of twisting violence.

He runs, without stopping, to the grounds....

The Dog Walker stands picking his nose by the oak when the Dogcatcher falls from the forest, scraped and bloody, giant German schnauzer by his side, and in just as shabby condition.

The guns, he calls out, bring the guns to the field.

The Dog Walker, surprised, does so. At the grounds the Dogcatcher, exhausted, falls to one knee and turns up the inner lip of the giant German schnauzer, revealing a series of tattooed numbers.

They're not just schnauzers, he says, they're Hohenzollern Werhhunden. The strongest, most loyal breed ever developed.

He tells the Dog Walker to use the clothes in the cabin to the north for a scent.

If I die in this duel, this dog will take you to the others.

Diver v. Dogcatcher

The lack of foresight on the part of the Dog Breeder - first for bringing her dogs to the dueling ground, and next for tying their leads to her arm while dueling - results in a series of complications.

The German schnauzers, in a frenzy of excitement and worry after their owner falls, begin barking and baying wildly. The Diver tries walking closer to calm them, but he's met with defensive snarls and quick bites from one dog, then three others. He backs away.

Stetson watches from the door of the cabin.

The Grave Digger arrives. He suggests shooting them all. One by one, he says calmly, in the gullet.

This is nixed by the Diver, holding the only free pistol, the other being beneath an increasingly tangled mass of leash and dog.

They watch as some of the squirming dogs begin whining, biting at each other.

Why not, offers the Grave Digger, shoot the dog you like least. Or two, three. The three ugliest dogs.

They all look alike! frets the Digger. I can't tell which is worse.

Oh the one with the limp, he's the worse.

Which one is that?

One being mounted by the ugly cur with dirt in its mouth, next to the one what's fighting with the other to lick the blood from the tit of the woman.

He thinks of shooting - even to the point of raising the pistol - but can't in good conscience bring himself to do it. They're all good dogs, he says dejectedly. I can't shoot any of them.

The Grave Digger looks to Stetson. Stetson shakes his head. The Grave Digger frowns deeply. With no other solution, he goes about an alternate plan.

Woosh, shoo, shah! he cries, arms high in the air, advancing on the dogs. They bark loudly, but - to the Diver's amazement - begin backing away. As they back away, they drag the tangled corpse of their master with them. Gun free, the Grave Digger grabs it. With only slight hesitation he aims and fires. The limping dog falls with a howl. The other dogs, shocked by the report of the pistol, fired so close, take off -- the six carrying both the body of their master and now one of their own.

As the Grave Digger aims to take out the second dog, the Diver dives (fitting), knocking down the Grave Digger, gun and all.

The dogs flee east, running headlong into the forest.

Ah spit! says the Grave Digger.

That night the Diver listens to incessant barking from far off in the forest. It dies off gradually sometime in the early morning.

When the Dogcatcher arrives, the Diver relays the events of the past day. The Dog Catcher identifies himself as such. He's a thin man with a purposeful look about him, the type of look that says to strangers: I'm a man completely invested, for better or worse, in the duties of my profession. And so he is.

I'll get those dogs back, he nods.

The Diver wants to tell him it's a fool's errand; that, either way, whether the dogs are recovered or not, nothing would come of them. But the conviction with which the Dogcatcher vowed their capture takes him aback.

Diver v. Dog Breeder

It seems almost a dream to him: was there noise, the low clank of gears first lumbering into motion, the gush of water, that night? The Diver stands at the bank of the creek and looks south. He hears water cascade from some hidden source past the white spires of dead pine, but whether the hum he hears is only the usual strain of ten thousand crickets or the spin of one far-off dynamo... he isn't sure.

He takes a seat in the grass near the Grave Digger. They both sit just outside Stetson's new bean patch. Stetson gently covers the last row.

He'd been telling the Grave Digger a story. The Diver, whom Stetson acknowledges with only a perfunctory glance, catches it en media res.

The end of Stetson's story:

Then two men, from behind birch trees, one to the left and one to the right, called out, asking me:

Stetson, what is the frequency?

They asked again while they beat me. Again, again: Stetson, what is the frequency?

The next day, after stumbling back to the cabin, I read the note the Contractor left on my table. He wrote about the AM station, and he gave the frequency.

The Grave Digger scratches his chest, nodding, interested.

It was difficult decoding the signal at first. But I have books, and the Cryptographer and I spoke; he suggested combinations. But now its faded. Earlier, when I first uncovered the pattern, the forecasts happened just minutes after I broke the code. I found this sequence -

...there is nothing surprising in this substitution...
...many of them had red edges...
...the hall seemed to rise before my eyes...

- which was almost immediately followed by a rustling of the trees along the ridge to the west. I watched as a gust of wind galloped down the valley - knocking papers from lap. In the stillness that followed, butterflies flitted before me - many with red edges around black wings. The potency of the technique floored me.

But ever since, after every reading, the time between decryption and the occurrence of the event has widened. From minutes to hours to days to... well. If I can look ahead, it's only far, far ahead.

That's why I didn't expect this, he says, touching his crooked nose.

Stetson's story ends here. Discussion never returns to anything as interesting. Soon after, all return to their respective homes, and to bed.

The next morning the Diver's woken by the sound of wild barking. He sees a woman walking to grounds, straining against seven leashes attached to seven giant German schnauzers.

Diver v. Doctor

Absently swatting mosquitos, the Diver looks out over the swamp to the south. He stands by the three cairns to the southeast. He sleeps there, by the cairns, that night.

It's there - at some late hour - that he hears the faint sound of machinery slowly rumble to life, and then the distant purr of water coursing into a shallow basin. The crescent moon shines enough light to show ripples form across the surface of the floodland. Looking higher he spies several small but sure lights very far away to the south, above the horizon, as if from a row of open windows or portals. They're so small they might easily be mistaken for stars in strange alignment. They even twinkle, in a way: the light breeze moves unseen branches, causing some lights to fade or black, then reappear, then dim again.

The Diver wipes his forehead of sweat (it's an unbearably hot night) before falling back into a ball in the tall grass by the creek.

Next day:

Well, the Hippocratic Oath doesn't necessarily prevent me from taking all life. I can't purposefully harm my patients. Or bring harm to others on behalf of a third party.

Except in Oregon.

Except in Oregon, you're right.

The Diver asks if there's anything else that might prevent them from dueling.

Not that I can think of, no.

Maybe you're not thinking hard enough.

The Doctor shrugs.

Distiller v. Diver

Again, after the duel, the Distiller hobbles back to the oak, hunkers down, and waits.

He watches as Pepple called Stetson hoes the last weeds in the plot between his house and the grounds, and begins planting.

Several hours of dull pastoral living pass by - made more insufferable given the stillness and humidity and mosquitos. Suddenly a low whistle's heard. Similar to the plaintive call of the loon. The Distiller shakes out of whatever thought possessed him at that moment and perks his ears. The whistle sounds again.

With great effort he stands and follows the sound east, to the edge of the forest. There, from the dark of the forest a figure crouches in the half-shadows of a low elm. He's tattooed, tattoos mixed with filth and streaks of caked dirt, above white skin. He wears a tattered, sorry loincloth with no shirt, frame thin and scarred. As light filters through the slowly waving branch that covers his head, inexpensive shell jewelry (necklace, earrings, beads) can be seen, adorning a gaunt, pock-marked face, gnarled beard and graying hair, matted but closely trimmed, with a knotted forelock running from the top of his scalp. In his left hand he carries war club. Across his chest loops the band of a dusty buckskin satchel.

The two men greet each other as old comrades. They talk in a strange dialect that suggests a form of demotic French, Industrial-era shop talk, and the echos of an ancient, forgotten branch of Iroquois. The Distiller's offered water and dried meat, both of which he cordially accepts.

Stetson leans on his hoe, watching the scene with great curiosity.

After more discussion - during which the forest dweller always acts in a respectful, deferential manner - the two men part, and the Distiller returns to the oak.

Stetson, his interest piqued, walks to the Distiller and asks him what he spoke to the man about.

He was an old trading rep with another tribe. He recognized me from early in my career. Congratulated me on the honor of being involved in the duel. Dubious honor in my opinion, but he didn't think so. I didn't know their territory stretches this far west. I invited him to sit with me under oak. Never say a man refuse quicker.

The Diver arrives the following morning.

Distiller v. Ditch Digger

After dispatching the Dispatcher, the Distiller hobbles over to the base of the oak. He sits. He doesn't move, but massages his calves for several hours, then reflects, then falls to sleep. Night falls. The Ditch Digger arrives early the next morning.

I spent my life in abeyance to the laws of supply and demand, he tells the Ditch Digger, a short, hale man with gray whisps of hair around his temples. Not, he adds whimsically, to those of the courts. And for that? A large house, a healthy business, a family - and crippling gout.

The Ditch Digger knows the man not by sight, but by way of the Distiller's name: its also the brand name of a widely sold, largely unlicensed gin.

The Ditch Digger, himself a man of uncertain moral standing, asks how the Distiller got started.

Small, that's how, he answers. Selling to the people around this area, the tribes in the forests. In exchange they gave me beautiful hand-woven baskets, some of them - one tribe in particular - while others supplied me with hand-thrown pottery, corn husk door mats, silk thread, leather key chains, steel squirrel traps, petty electronics, Tupperware, knives, fine silverware.

Of course, nods the Ditch Digger.

In turn I sold those to the wholesalers, used that money to buy more grain, and continued the cycle for years.

The Ditch Digger shoes away a fly.

The biggest mistake for newcommers is this: don't interfere with the tribes; for God's sake, don't take sides. It's a never ending fight with them. Just supply the gin and step clear.

The two men sit quietly and regard Stetson called Pepple, who hoes with steady hand under the hot summer sun.

Dispatcher v. Distiller

It threatens to rain before it rains. When it rains, it rains hard.

Beneath the tree, huddled under the black umbrella left beneath the Shaker table, the Dispatcher stares at the aerial attached to the cabin to the north. She wonders, having left without a named replacement, who's taken her position at the station.

The next morning, waking before dawn, stiff-necked from sleeping in an unnatural upright position, though mostly dry, she sees Stetson called Pepple talking with a man in overalls and a long-billed cap, holding a weathered hoe. Not the Grave Digger, but another - the Farmer - who stands beside a half-full burlap sack. Stetson hands the Farmer cash and takes the sack, and the hoe.

The Farmer leaves through the field. Stetson, in a stained white shirt tucked into dark slacks, uses the hoe to pull up the light green, rust-flecked, waist-high corn in a square patch to the south of the cabin, bordering between the cabin and grounds.

The Dispatcher walks north. She approaches Stetson. Through the course of time she channels the conversation - up until then concerning only his labor, the cleaning of corn for a patch of beans (Beans so late!) - to the aerial. She learns that he does indeed have a radio. What's more, he knows of her station.

I listen to it, he admits, without understanding half of what's being said.

She explains that a good portion of each blotter clip is in code - shorthand, she says - that's used to speed the transfer of vital information to those citizens and semi-official officials (Deputies, etc.) who subscribe to the National Rioting Forum (a semi-official publication) in hope of acting quickly to join local militias organized to quell spontaneous or semi-spontaneous public uprisings.

They get rewarded for their involvement, she says. Some travel all around the country.

They talk further. The Dispatcher's real desire is aired: a quick check to see who (if anyone) is reading the blotter in her place. Stetson consider the request. He lowers the hoe and takes the Dispatcher to his cabin.

Inside, to the side of a long broad-cut wood table acting as a desk, sits a radio of antique and makeshift build. Stetson sits, puts on headphones, flicks a switch, and begins turning dials before him. It only takes a few seconds to get the signal. Once caught, he unplugs the headphones and plugs in the flowering amplifier.

Transcription of signal heard:

... substantially over. We see no reason, however, to alter the message expressed in our last bulletin. The outbreak was the natural consequence of pernicious teachings widely scattered among the ignorant and excitable populace; and the only possible mode of dealing with it was stern and bloody repression. EOD Statistics: RKIA number 14; RIIA number 291; Fires confined to slumslands, minor encroachment Wards 4, 6, 14, 98; Looting moderate, low-end: petty electronics, bicycle shops, saloons, speakeasies; Bounties by witness 12 / 3 / 1 / confiscations; Notables, official: Militia Leader No. 11231A13; Notables, semi-official: Beverly Fontaine, Steamfitter; R.E. Ogts, Riverman; Casualties, official: none; Casualties, semi-official: nil KIA, minor abrasions; Forecasts: Recurrence 24h: AP 19%, NYRB 12%, FBHD 7%; Recurrence 1w: AP 4%, NYRB 1%, FBHD .05%; Recurrence 1m: all nil; EEAI Estimates: Bracket 13: 5.66; Bracket 11a: 3.11; Bracket 23c: 9.12; REE Benchmarks: 102-012 / 109-41 / 119-125. The weather is hot today for sections across --

The Dispatcher nods, and Stetson flips off the power. He can tell she's confused. Even through the poor reception, it's clear that the voice dispatching the blotter matches hers exactly: in tone, accent, style of diction, pace of diction. I'd swear that was a recording, she says softly, if I didn't report the same riot yesterday, when the brackets were lower and the benchmarks higher.

She thanks him, leaves the cabin, and returns to the oak. He returns to his plot, again taking up the hoe.

The Distiller's meets the Dispatcher at the oak. He's a round man with deep lines under his eyes, creases down the sides of his mouth. Gout-ridden, or recovering from gout, he walks with help from a cane, wincing with each step.

Disc Jockey v. Dispatcher

A blue bird alights on the table next to the Disc Jockey, who is just waking from a long day of drinking. The bird ruffles its feathers before darting off. The Disc Jockey stands, hand bracing the table for support, when it strikes him that he has no idea where he is or how he got to this place. If it wasn't for the overwhelming urge to vomit, he would have stood in bafflement at the peculiar scene around him - the pistols, the oak, the cabin, the forest, the mounds of fresh earth. Instead he staggers out to the grass and lets fall a mouthful of bright orange bile, then another.

With nothing to drink, but feeling a great urge to drink, he walks to the cabin to the north. Which may or may not be deserted, he's not entirely sure.

Stetson called Pepple answers, forehead beaded with sweat. Though the windows to the cabin are open, the Disc Jockey feels the stagnant heat of the cabin from the threshold.

Stetson provides the man with water. To answer the next question that arises, Stetson takes the telegraph tucked brusquely in the Disc Jockey's shirt pocket, opens it, and presents it. The Disc Jockey stares. It's a few seconds before he's able to piece together the memory of receiving the order.

When he learns that he won yesterday's duel - won while blacked out - he's overcome by another wave of nausea.

By luck, the Disc Jockey and the Dispatcher know each other.

They both host shows broadcast at the bottom of the AM dial: the Disc Jockey plays contemporary folk and country; the Dispatcher relays the national police dispatch, with a focus on urban riots, and weather at the 7-s.

Diplomat v. Disc Jockey

About a month before the Diplomat arrived, the Chess Master brought a folding chess board to the grounds. It's since been tucked under the Shaker table beneath the oak. The Diplomat discovers it and - being an urbane sort of man, as well as a fairly amiable one - walks north and invites Stetson called Pepple to a game. No stakes, just a game.

Stetson agrees, though he still suffers from the effects of a broken nose.

The Diplomat beats him three times out of five.

You're a crafty player, says the Diplomat (diplomatically), but I can't help but notice that you have an unconscious tendency - if you could call it that - to replay the same moves each game. Or not moves, but patterns of positioning.

This is well-observed.

In fact Stetson does show a weakness of movement on the board. First in that his play - far from being directed at the center - is to each side of the board. Second in that he seems concerned not only with the capture of the Diplomat's pieces, but the illogical (but patterned) positioning of his own pieces on specific squares.

It's almost, says the Diplomat, as if you were less interested in winning than establishing a mutually spare endgame.

Stetson regards his observation. He indicates that in each game he was trying to set up a complex play of which he'd heard.

From where? asks the Diplomat, genuinely interested.

From the radio, answers Stetson.

Later, when the Disc Jockey arrives, the Diplomat asks if he's heard of any program on the radio that discusses chess.

The Disc Jockey, a bleary-eyed man with spiked, bleach blond hair, tries to answer. Unfortunately, being incommunicably drunk, he can't. He sways to the dueling field, pistol in hand. The Diplomat follows.

Dietitian v. Diplomat

Odd when Stetson called Pepple arrives at the grounds, politely introduces himself as the caretaker, and asks for the Dietitian's hand. Though still in slight shock from the duel, she relents to the strange request. It strikes her as being very peculiar that the caretaker seems less interested in the gesture of 'taking a woman's hand' than the careful examination of the hand itself.

Whether satisfactory or not, Stetson doesn't say. After close study, he simply bows and walks back north to his cabin. That afternoon he collects dry wood from along the border of the forest.

The Diplomat arrives to the first meeting of her life that cannot be resolved in any way but violence.

Detective v. Dietitian

After downing the Dictator, the Detective sets north again with the clear intention of pistol-whipping a bit more information from Stetson called Pepple. It's at the demarcation between the grounds and the thigh-high corn that the Detective sees it: the Mauser held in Stetson's hands. The Detective spits.

I gotta hunch you wouldn't fire that, shouts the Detective.

Stetson adjusts the makeshift bandage over his broken nose. The Detective walks back to the oak.

Noon comes, and so too comes the Grave Digger. He nearly cries with joy at he nears the Dictator, face hot and pink on the grass of the dueling field, a chest of metals and epaulets shining in the summer sun. The Detective steps from under the oak, watching as the Grave Digger loots the body, first by ripping each metal with a satisfying jerk then testing their worth with a prospector's bite. After each chomp, regardless of the result, he deposits them in his great, oversized trouser pocket.

The Detective coughs. The Grave Digger looks up nervously while at the same time crouching slightly over the corpse, possessive as a wolf over a fresh kill.

Work for the fella in the cabin over there, huh? he asks.

The Grave Digger snorts. He turns back to the body. Supposing I do, he growls.

Pay you well? he asks.

Today I got my worth, the Grave Digger spits.

That right, says the Detective. He laughs. Bet you suppose you'll be able to pawn those metals off. Truth told, all together they're worth oh... a carton of cigarettes, maybe. If you barter well.

The Grave Digger turns around. He screws his eye at the Detective. What do you know about that? he asks.

You work homicide long enough, sighs the Detective, stretching, you meet a Fence or two. You start getting a notion for the price of things. I'll tell ya it's always the same with petty schmucks like this character here: exterior, exterior, exterior. Shiny, flashy, the conspicuous display of wealth. When really it's just - an illusion. You bite down on any gold?

The Grave Digger shrugs.

You didn't. Because these people are cagey. They no dummies. They keep their wealth - their real wealth - hidden. Now in the case of a third-world Dictator jumping from a passing prop plane, I'm guessing that wealth is a form easily transferred. Gold coins. Krugerrands. If I were you I'd check the lining of his jacket.

The Grave Digger, caught up with the logic of the Detective, does what the man says: he unbuttons and flips open the jacket. Inside, on the right, there's a long tear beneath interior pocket. Sitting, baffled, he suddenly hears the heavy jingle of coins. The Grave Digger looks up. The Detective holds a small leather pouch full of gold.

Start talking about how you found this place and we'll split it.

The Grave Digger gives a wry smile.

And if you think you'll wait patient until I go down with a bullet to the chest to collect, adds the Detective, I'm happy to bury it. Before you bury me.

The Grave Digger considers. He looks north to the cabin, hidden at his vantage by the waist-high corn. What do you want to know? he asks quietly.

The Detective tells him to start from the beginning.

Well, starts the Grave Digger, I first seen him in town by the mill. Quiet fella, smelled like death itself, not a clean man. He were buying meal. Later I seen him again by the town with an older lady. Later again I seen him jess watching me from outside the general store. Before I think he might be stalking me like prey, he comes to me and says he's got a proposition and do I need work. I need work, so almost any proposition might do, I says. He tells me about this place. I come out to see it, and well I then saw the legend were true. My days are numbered the minute I seen it, so I stepped in full hearted. Told I'd get a fortune for my daughter if nothing else.

What legends?

There were people here before the town, and then people during it, way back. First the Indians. Then a commune a rich man started. The Indians were bad but stayed to the forest, rarely left - only rare you'd hear of a kidnap. Legends of back-switched trails and a valley. This valley. And, of course, the dueling what goes on.

How does he fit in, the caretaker?

That I don't know. He reads, he bought a radio listener for the radio. Young, quiet, keeps alone.

The Detective purses his lips. He kneels, opens the pouch, and shakes out the Krugerrands. Counts half (seven) and hands these over. The Grave Digger feels the strange weight of the coins in his hand. He pockets them.

Contract says all gold goes to him, the Grave Digger frets.

Give him six, you take one. I won't tell. It's enough to see your daughter well for a month. I'll give you another if I live until tomorrow.

The Grave Digger nods. He takes one coin and tucks it in his boot. He leaves, meeting Pepple to the north.

The next day, when the Dietitian arrives, all coins but one are safely buried beneath a stone to the far west of the third cairn to the west.

Detective v. Dictator

The Detective tucks one of the dueling pistols under his belt at the small of his back. He walks north, to where Pepple sits reading.

What's going on here? he says.

Pepple looks up. Excuse me? he blinks.

In a flash, the Detective leans down, grabs Pepple by the collar, and hoists him roughly to his feet.

Listen you sad excuse for an upstate Quatermain, I'm not in the practice of killing, you understand? I like to have a reason before I shoot a man who seconds before was telling me about a private dam to the south feeding power to this cabin of yours. So talk. Start spilling.

Pepple, caught, tries pulling away. The Detective hits him with a snap punch to the nose. Pepple lets out an involuntary cry.

Spill, shouts the Detective, if you know what's good for you!

What do you want to know? shouts Pepple.

Who are your? What are you doing?

My name's Stetson van Popple.

The Detective lets him go.

I'm caretaker of the grounds.

The Detective pulls the pistol from behind his back. He doesn't aim it at Stetson, but holds it conspicuously by his side, finger on the trigger.

Knew a caretaker once. Went by Jonesy. Used to work at the school my daughter went to. He read, too. Guess what?

Stetson raises a finger to wipe the blood issuing from his nose.

Dime comics. The kind you pick up at the supermarket check-out. Archie and Veronica.

He points the pistol down at the small red cloth-bound book beside Stetson's chair. Give me what you were reading, the Detective commands. Stetson slowly hands him the book. The Detective takes it with his left hand. He takes a step back and opens it to its ancient cover page.

Annals of Tacitus, reads the Detective. He throws the book harshly into Stetson's lap.

Stetson catches the book, barely.

Now why not tell me what you're really doing here?

The Dictator parachutes in from plane overhead.

Demolitionist v. Detective

For the third day in a row, the reaping of the previous duel proves less than customary. Not even a wedding band is found. Instead of offsetting the balance, Pepple sends the Grave Digger off empty handed.

When the Demolitionist arrives looking for food, Pepple - looking slightly gaunt himself - breaks a small piece of black bread and hands it over, along with water. The two men eat in silence.

The Demolitionist asks why Pepple doesn't take his rifle and hunt in the forest.

There's game up here, he says, there must be. I'll help you hunt - if you need help.

Pepple takes up his notepad. Three lines are written. He'd drawn them that morning.

...reverently, they place some of the plants...
...the truth is that it longed to yield...
...I didn't know it had got as far as that...

It rains a hard summer rain that night. It breaks the heat.

The Detective arrives in a cheap suit, mopping his face with a yellowed handkerchief.

Demolitionist v. Designer

The Dermatologist's corpse, too, turns up light. An electronic watch, a few dollars, a slim wedding band. The Grave Digger appeals to Pepple. Again, Pepple takes the band and subsidizes the haul with cash. The Grave Digger walks off silently. Pepple sits, thinking, for several minutes.

The Demolitionist, having not eaten for several days, joins Pepple. Pepple considers the man. He returns from his cabin with black bread and a chipped mug of stale water. The Demolitionist eagerly consumes both. They talk, and Pepple reveals that he expects a windfall shortly. He looks to the forest. The Demolitionist notes his pad: filled with notes, charts, analysis; phrases written and circled, modified and put in a variety of associations, crossed-out and redacted. In the middle he sees a chess board, pieces arranged in bizarre fashion, with two pawns at the center.

The Designer arrives in flowing fabrics. She's an average-looking woman with unique hair.

The Demolitionist asks about her clothes.

Bedouin, Poppy, Bedouin! she cries with arms outstretched, explaining: Historical analysis proves an exemplary means by which to arrive at fashionable variety.

Demolitionist v. Dermatologist

The haul from the Dentist is slim. The Grave Digger checks her pockets, her purse. Apart from a few dollars, a small gold wedding band and simple costume jewelry, nothing of great value is found. He buries the body and speaks with Pepple. Pepple considers.

The weather's oppressively hot. Sweat drips from Pepple's beard like rain from straw.

After some deliberation, he takes the small wedding band from the Grave Digger, reaches in his pocket and - presumably to make up for the meager looting - gives the man several folded bills. Pepple then points to the aerial, then to the forest. He talks with the Grave Digger a bit longer. The Grave Digger leaves.

The Demolitionist watches from the oak.

He thinks of walking over to Pepple and telling him of the pipe, but can't think of any reason why Pepple wouldn't either know of its existence already or care. It's a minor discovery that, for him, sheds no light on anything... apart from whence the light from within the cabin is manifest.

The Dermatologist arrives late.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.