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.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, June 27, 2008
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.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Demolitionist v. Dentist
After the duel the Demolitionist quietly begins pacing the length of the grounds. At last, along the creek that marks the southern border, just north of where the Astrophysicist drove his motorized wheelchair off the two foot-high bank, he sees a clay pipe half buried beneath pebbles and grit. The pipe's old and worn, with algae clinging to the downstream fringe, waving gently in the current.
Following the direction of the pipe, he notes that it aims to a spot just east of the great mound to the northwest of the grounds - not directly to the well. In the other direction, the pipe leads out past the marshland. He strains to see vines and foliage covering a sloped embankment far, far to the south, perpendicular to the direction of the valley.
When he makes to jump across the river to get a better view, an arrow cuts silently into the soft ground before him. He snaps his head to the direction from where it was shot: the forest, not forty paces away. The trees shake. He pulls the arrow from the ground and examines it: it's fletched from scratch, with crow feathers for stabilizers, and a polished, sharpened scrap metal spike for a tip.
When the Dentist arrives the following morning he takes her to where the pipe runs across the creek. He identifies it as an old insulation pipe, its interior coated with lead. Then he points south to the southern embankment.
And that's a private dam, he says. Concrete covered in creeper.
The Dentist strains to see.
Out of view a beaver hits its tail against the calm water.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Following the direction of the pipe, he notes that it aims to a spot just east of the great mound to the northwest of the grounds - not directly to the well. In the other direction, the pipe leads out past the marshland. He strains to see vines and foliage covering a sloped embankment far, far to the south, perpendicular to the direction of the valley.
When he makes to jump across the river to get a better view, an arrow cuts silently into the soft ground before him. He snaps his head to the direction from where it was shot: the forest, not forty paces away. The trees shake. He pulls the arrow from the ground and examines it: it's fletched from scratch, with crow feathers for stabilizers, and a polished, sharpened scrap metal spike for a tip.
When the Dentist arrives the following morning he takes her to where the pipe runs across the creek. He identifies it as an old insulation pipe, its interior coated with lead. Then he points south to the southern embankment.
And that's a private dam, he says. Concrete covered in creeper.
The Dentist strains to see.
Out of view a beaver hits its tail against the calm water.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Demolitionist v. Dental Assistant
Lacking much direction after the duel - and being the type of man in constant need for direction, or an outlet for his thoughts; being an extrovert, in other words - the Demolitionist saunters north to chat with Pepple, who sits in the shade of his shack, reading.
The only thing different about Pepple since the Curator's visit is the addition of a panama hat (previously the Curator's) that sits at a jaunty angle over his agreeably trimmed scalp. That and the number of books - now four - that lie in a neat stack beside his Adirondack chair. The books are hard-bound, aged, and worn. Their titles are difficult to read from the angle of the Demolitionist's view. The top seems clearly a volume on esoteric interpretation, the Tree of Life pressed in gilt on the leather cover.
Pepple interrupts his reading to chat for a few minutes. He reveals the nature of the aerial.
Just for curiosity's sake, asks the Demolitionist, where do you get the power for the radio?
He's right to be curious. No power lines run from the road. The roof's without solar panels. No generator fires.
Pepple dog-ears his book, stands, and leads the Demolitionist to the side of his cabin, from which a black cable runs. The cable's of an old make, easily decades old, from the dawn of the electrical age: a thick layer vulcanized rubber melted into coarse hemp insulates twined copper wire. The Demolitionists tugs the cable lightly. It lifts from the grass, leading in the direction of the nearby well.
It's from down there? he asks Pepple, turning.
Pepple nods and returns to his seat, finished with conversation. The Demolitionist looks back and forth between the cable and the well, then at Pepple. Puzzled, he leaves for the oak.
That evening, as the sky darkens, he sees the flicker of light from Pepple's cabin - then a dim luminescence from the south window. Inside, Pepple tilts his head, listening closely to the signal on the AM band. He scribbles phrases on a pad.
The next day the Dental Assistant arrives. She's a pretty young woman not yet in her thirties. A few seconds of conversation reveals her to be phlegmatic to the extreme. Her actions are marked, her reactions gauged. Her preparations are extensive, clinical. She's the first to question whether the heads of their bullet should be sanitized prior to the duel.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
The only thing different about Pepple since the Curator's visit is the addition of a panama hat (previously the Curator's) that sits at a jaunty angle over his agreeably trimmed scalp. That and the number of books - now four - that lie in a neat stack beside his Adirondack chair. The books are hard-bound, aged, and worn. Their titles are difficult to read from the angle of the Demolitionist's view. The top seems clearly a volume on esoteric interpretation, the Tree of Life pressed in gilt on the leather cover.
Pepple interrupts his reading to chat for a few minutes. He reveals the nature of the aerial.
Just for curiosity's sake, asks the Demolitionist, where do you get the power for the radio?
He's right to be curious. No power lines run from the road. The roof's without solar panels. No generator fires.
Pepple dog-ears his book, stands, and leads the Demolitionist to the side of his cabin, from which a black cable runs. The cable's of an old make, easily decades old, from the dawn of the electrical age: a thick layer vulcanized rubber melted into coarse hemp insulates twined copper wire. The Demolitionists tugs the cable lightly. It lifts from the grass, leading in the direction of the nearby well.
It's from down there? he asks Pepple, turning.
Pepple nods and returns to his seat, finished with conversation. The Demolitionist looks back and forth between the cable and the well, then at Pepple. Puzzled, he leaves for the oak.
That evening, as the sky darkens, he sees the flicker of light from Pepple's cabin - then a dim luminescence from the south window. Inside, Pepple tilts his head, listening closely to the signal on the AM band. He scribbles phrases on a pad.
The next day the Dental Assistant arrives. She's a pretty young woman not yet in her thirties. A few seconds of conversation reveals her to be phlegmatic to the extreme. Her actions are marked, her reactions gauged. Her preparations are extensive, clinical. She's the first to question whether the heads of their bullet should be sanitized prior to the duel.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Demographer v. Demolitionist
While Pepple studies several open books laid about him in the shade of his cabin, the Demographer and the Demolitionist agree on the importance of keeping the correct person-to-building ratio.
Business is really booming, says the Demolitionist. That's an old Demolitionist joke - but it's true, especially given today's circumstances. Hell if I didn't demolish six destitute tenements earlier this week, and twice that many single-family homes. All on the fringes of the city. Sure I feel bad for the squatters --
But they're the responsibility of the Civil Servant, finishes the Demographer.
Exactly.
The Demographer asks the biggest thing the Demolitionist destroyed. Answer: a dam.
They're spotted all over this area on maps. Small private dams, beaver dams, larger public dams. I read an old map that indicated the presence of one near here. Very small, built ages ago. But you know they built those early dynamos to last. Could still be pumping power... to God knows what, but power nevertheless.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Business is really booming, says the Demolitionist. That's an old Demolitionist joke - but it's true, especially given today's circumstances. Hell if I didn't demolish six destitute tenements earlier this week, and twice that many single-family homes. All on the fringes of the city. Sure I feel bad for the squatters --
But they're the responsibility of the Civil Servant, finishes the Demographer.
Exactly.
The Demographer asks the biggest thing the Demolitionist destroyed. Answer: a dam.
They're spotted all over this area on maps. Small private dams, beaver dams, larger public dams. I read an old map that indicated the presence of one near here. Very small, built ages ago. But you know they built those early dynamos to last. Could still be pumping power... to God knows what, but power nevertheless.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Deputy v. Demographer
Did you know, says the Demographer, that we haven't been able to get a solid census of this area for over six decades? the Demographer asks the Deputy. The towns are difficult, he continues, but the outland regions - locations like this, for example, are nearly impossible. All we can go by is rumor and speculation. That leads to poor data.
The Deputy, who skipped out of the last census taking, grunts.
We think there are about a thousand in the woodland areas to the east. Again, it's impossible to tell for sure. Between the hunters and trappers, hermits and recluses, let alone the primitives? It's anyone's guess.
But, he claps his hands, its the way it goes, huh?
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
The Deputy, who skipped out of the last census taking, grunts.
We think there are about a thousand in the woodland areas to the east. Again, it's impossible to tell for sure. Between the hunters and trappers, hermits and recluses, let alone the primitives? It's anyone's guess.
But, he claps his hands, its the way it goes, huh?
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Cyberathlete v. Deputy
It's early morning when the Cyberathlete wakes to the sound of a diesel engine sputter to life in the distance. He looks up from the grass and locates the direction of the sound. It comes from the north, just past the caretaker's cabin. When he stands he looks but the corn - now three feet high - prevents him from seeing the machine. Pepple stands nearby the well, watching.
Several minutes later Pepple turns it off the motor. Then, after a careful turn at the base of the well, he disappears. The Cyberathlete walks onto the mound to the northwest of the field, curious to see if Pepple's merely stooping. Atop the mound he sees the top of the engine - connected to a pump, or similar mechanism - but no caretaker. He returns to the oak.
The Deputy arrives in uniform. The topic of conversation quickly turns to the riots in the streets of the city.
If I were Mayor I'd let the militia fire right into the crowd, says the Deputy.
They do that already.
And they should all the time. Its only until they see blood in the streets, you take my word, right like a river down the storm drains what'll make wise to rights. There's a thing as called public order. It needs to be put back square in place.
They arrested over a hundred just the other day, recalls the Cyberathlete, in the slums.
A hundred from a crowd's not much. Just like a ritual they do that always every mass lawbreaking.
It's not long before the Cyberathlete discovers the Deputy to be the wholly irrepressible fool he is. The Cyberathlete turns. The Deputy continues talking.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Several minutes later Pepple turns it off the motor. Then, after a careful turn at the base of the well, he disappears. The Cyberathlete walks onto the mound to the northwest of the field, curious to see if Pepple's merely stooping. Atop the mound he sees the top of the engine - connected to a pump, or similar mechanism - but no caretaker. He returns to the oak.
The Deputy arrives in uniform. The topic of conversation quickly turns to the riots in the streets of the city.
If I were Mayor I'd let the militia fire right into the crowd, says the Deputy.
They do that already.
And they should all the time. Its only until they see blood in the streets, you take my word, right like a river down the storm drains what'll make wise to rights. There's a thing as called public order. It needs to be put back square in place.
They arrested over a hundred just the other day, recalls the Cyberathlete, in the slums.
A hundred from a crowd's not much. Just like a ritual they do that always every mass lawbreaking.
It's not long before the Cyberathlete discovers the Deputy to be the wholly irrepressible fool he is. The Cyberathlete turns. The Deputy continues talking.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Cyberathlete v. Dancer
Clouds drift unceremoniously across the swollen sky. The Cyberathlete, sitting in the sun just out of the oak's shadow, watches them with unfathomable boredom. He's a young man, very young, whose contest winnings have over the course of several years put him into a higher tax bracket than his father. He wears a t-shirt with the picture of a highly pixilated penguin on the front and the word GUN!!! printed underneath. He's never understood the charm of nature. Given that he's not the type to explore the potential for life outside an air-conditioned enclosure, he probably never will.
At night he falls asleep under the oak. He wakes to rain that only lasts a few minutes. He sits leans against the oak and falls back to sleep.
The next day the Dancer arrives. She seems dressed for the beach.
Wait, says the Cyberathlete, weren't you on Dance Dance Dance Party Dance Off?
The Dancer was. She came in third.
When the Cyberathlete begins discussing his profession - very earnestly - the Dancer grows bored and distracted. When it's clear that she wants nothing to do with him, he suggests they begin preparing for the duel.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
At night he falls asleep under the oak. He wakes to rain that only lasts a few minutes. He sits leans against the oak and falls back to sleep.
The next day the Dancer arrives. She seems dressed for the beach.
Wait, says the Cyberathlete, weren't you on Dance Dance Dance Party Dance Off?
The Dancer was. She came in third.
When the Cyberathlete begins discussing his profession - very earnestly - the Dancer grows bored and distracted. When it's clear that she wants nothing to do with him, he suggests they begin preparing for the duel.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Customs Officer v. Cyberathlete
Exposure to the country brings about a change in the Customs Officer. Her home is the city port, a labyrinthine tangle of alleys and catwalks, between warehouses and stock exchanges, all leading to and from the long planked piers of the waterfront. Her home is in the garret of the customs house, where she lives with her husband (Fishmonger) and child (feckless). She's a necessarily hardened woman. But take her from under the overhang of the customs wharf and out to the sweet-smelling idyl of the grounds she now inhabits and a change comes over her: whereas before she was an officious, stubborn bureaucrat, she's now a slightly less officious, stubborn bureaucrat -- and an enthusiastic proponent of all things natural.
This new-found love acts as hard work does: keeping her from thinking of the one regret in her life.
The Cyberathlete arrives. They talk briefly. Something about the weather and the setting turns the Customs Officer reflective and confessional. She airs her secret:
Though I'm about as honest an officer as you'd ever come across, my one regret is a slip that happened a few years ago. There was a strange young man who came in off a tramp freighter with a crate of tribal objects. Now I don't need to tell you that I was ready to stamp the whole thing as immoral and potentially riotous - that's my job when I come across foreign objects that don't belong here except under the careful supervision of a university or museum. But the man gave me something and that something was enough to move my family into the garret we live in now, just above the customs office.
The Cyberathlete asks what she was given.
An ingot of gold, she whispers with a guilty voice, in a mold shaped like a young woman's finger.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Customer Service Representative v. Customs Officer
After the burial of the dog-masked boy and the duel between the Customer Service Representative and the Custodian, the dueling ground grows quiet. The day's warm, a breeze wafts through the valley. It cools the CS Rep, who lies in the grass under the oak, napping. He falls in and out of sleep until dark.
He'd heard the Custodian jabber about a swarm of maniacs who shot from the forest and nearly killed him. Though he doubts what he'd heard--with good reason, given the Custodian's bizarre continence--because he can't explain the death of the dog-masked boy, he feels a growing dread as the sun falls behind the peak to the west, and night falls.
Throughout the night he hears sounds from the forest. He makes out the distant, barely audible throb of drums.
And from the west, too, he hears sounds: not drumming but the mild tones of a far-off waltz, carried by the breeze.
They issue hours apart from one another, the waltz coming decidedly after the drumming, and continuing throughout most of the night.
The Customs Officer arrives the next morning with a satchel full of bureaucratic stamps.
I bring my own stamps, she says brusquely, from home. I don't make them, I buy them from a catalogue. Government issued stamps are generally substandard is the reason.
She shows him several stamps of hers without him having asked. A list of some of the stamps shown:
- Rejected Foodstuffs
- Unsanitary Packaging
- Potentially Riotous
- Of Questionable Moral Composition
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
He'd heard the Custodian jabber about a swarm of maniacs who shot from the forest and nearly killed him. Though he doubts what he'd heard--with good reason, given the Custodian's bizarre continence--because he can't explain the death of the dog-masked boy, he feels a growing dread as the sun falls behind the peak to the west, and night falls.
Throughout the night he hears sounds from the forest. He makes out the distant, barely audible throb of drums.
And from the west, too, he hears sounds: not drumming but the mild tones of a far-off waltz, carried by the breeze.
They issue hours apart from one another, the waltz coming decidedly after the drumming, and continuing throughout most of the night.
The Customs Officer arrives the next morning with a satchel full of bureaucratic stamps.
I bring my own stamps, she says brusquely, from home. I don't make them, I buy them from a catalogue. Government issued stamps are generally substandard is the reason.
She shows him several stamps of hers without him having asked. A list of some of the stamps shown:
- Rejected Foodstuffs
- Unsanitary Packaging
- Potentially Riotous
- Of Questionable Moral Composition
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Custodian v. Customer Service Representative
It's unclear when they emerge from the forest.
Less clear is how many emerge.
Even with the full moon dimly illuminating the swarm, men flying in hideous file from the black recess, the Custodian, too terrified to scream, can't determine rightly if five, ten, or fifty are in the mass. He only sees costume, or fragments of many costumes: animals, some - crow, stag, beaver, wolf - others of more decadent design, abstractions of face in terrifying deformation, formed of twisted corn husk, straw, bark, bone, long shocks of twisted hair. Most horrifying is their silence - the speed and silence of their movements. The whisk of a corn husk cape, the flutter of leaves from the loincloth, the inaudible whistle of a feathered mask. The Custodian, petrified, watches as the party rolls forward - seemingly over itself, impossibly, like the undulating segments of a bristling caterpillar. They round the oak, snake to the graves, then to the northern border, where - all men in constant movement, shying and crowding, the mass of them shivering in a roiling boil of bodies - they stop, as if regarding. From the group one man emerges in a crouch and stands apart. From the cabin there's the spark - and a shot.
The man who stands apart falls.
The men of the party, previously silent, begins baying like beasts, and together - in tightly knit chaos - return to the east, to the forest.
Pepple, Mauser under his arm, walks from the cabin and regards the body. In the moonlight he removes the mask - the mask of a dog - and sees the face of the teenage boy, tan, with matted dirty blond haired and blue eyes. A ribbon of blood runs from his mouth. His eyes widen slightly - then dim.
The Custodian shuffles frantically to Pepple's side, both dueling pistols in each hand, his entire body shaking in fright.
My God mister... who were they?
Pepple covers the boy's face with the dog mask.
This is their apology, says Pepple, looking down at the dead body. It's ceremony.
W-what..., stammers the Custodian. But h-how did you know?
The yarrow stalks, he replies simply. And the signal.
They part without burying the boy.
The next morning the Custodian and Customer Service Representative watche as the Undertaker drags the boy's body from the ground to the dead land by the red rock, next to Pepple's cabin, and buries him under the shadow of the red rock.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Less clear is how many emerge.
Even with the full moon dimly illuminating the swarm, men flying in hideous file from the black recess, the Custodian, too terrified to scream, can't determine rightly if five, ten, or fifty are in the mass. He only sees costume, or fragments of many costumes: animals, some - crow, stag, beaver, wolf - others of more decadent design, abstractions of face in terrifying deformation, formed of twisted corn husk, straw, bark, bone, long shocks of twisted hair. Most horrifying is their silence - the speed and silence of their movements. The whisk of a corn husk cape, the flutter of leaves from the loincloth, the inaudible whistle of a feathered mask. The Custodian, petrified, watches as the party rolls forward - seemingly over itself, impossibly, like the undulating segments of a bristling caterpillar. They round the oak, snake to the graves, then to the northern border, where - all men in constant movement, shying and crowding, the mass of them shivering in a roiling boil of bodies - they stop, as if regarding. From the group one man emerges in a crouch and stands apart. From the cabin there's the spark - and a shot.
The man who stands apart falls.
The men of the party, previously silent, begins baying like beasts, and together - in tightly knit chaos - return to the east, to the forest.
Pepple, Mauser under his arm, walks from the cabin and regards the body. In the moonlight he removes the mask - the mask of a dog - and sees the face of the teenage boy, tan, with matted dirty blond haired and blue eyes. A ribbon of blood runs from his mouth. His eyes widen slightly - then dim.
The Custodian shuffles frantically to Pepple's side, both dueling pistols in each hand, his entire body shaking in fright.
My God mister... who were they?
Pepple covers the boy's face with the dog mask.
This is their apology, says Pepple, looking down at the dead body. It's ceremony.
W-what..., stammers the Custodian. But h-how did you know?
The yarrow stalks, he replies simply. And the signal.
They part without burying the boy.
The next morning the Custodian and Customer Service Representative watche as the Undertaker drags the boy's body from the ground to the dead land by the red rock, next to Pepple's cabin, and buries him under the shadow of the red rock.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Curator v. Custodian
...the corn spirit for example......and the flavor of the sagas...
...it is my heart's blood, Jeeves...
The Curator takes the South Pointing Marmot to Pepple, who sits smoking a pipe in the shade of his cabin. As the Curator approaches Pepple folds a piece of notepad paper - one with three fragments written atop - that he'd been pondering over, and gently tucks it in his shirt pocket.
Since delegating the grave digging duties to the Grave Digger, Pepple's appearance has improved noticeably. He's bathed, his hands washed, his hair combed (though still long over his ears), and his beard trimmed in a tidy, shapely manner. He wears relatively clean khaki slacks, leather shoes, and a white collared shirt - all store bought. He only lacks a hat.
Which may be why he eyes the Curator's panama hat with special interest.
Sir, the Curator opens, let me introduce myself.
He introduces himself, and hands Pepple the same card he handed the Cryptographer.
I hope you don't mind the slight mark of blood my thumb left on the bottom left, quivers the Curator apologetically. I would offer you a fresh one, but I'm afraid that was my last.
Pepple studies it closely.
I came, ventures the Curator, to pass along this charming compass. I thought it may be yours?
It's not, says Pepple.
Well take it, man! Take it into your care! Aged it isn't, but art is art is art. Take it, protect it. Keep it for yourself. It's a thrilling conversation piece if I've ever seen one.
Pepple regards the compass and, after considering the offer, agrees to the take the South Pointing Marmot. He sets it down beside him.
Ah good, good, sighs the Curator. He looks around, eyeing the cabin. Lovely little home. Quaint. With an arial to outside world we can't call you a true descendant of Thoreau, hmm? But - tell me, you must be a Judge of this small round of contest?
Pepple's looks up with a blank expression.
This... dueling match? No? Not in any way affiliated?
Pepple shrugs.
Well, in any event I was hoping sincerely whether I might be given permission - seeing that I have stayed for at least one round - postpone the other rounds to a future date.
I'm sorry, but that transgresses the Unspoken Rules.
The Curator readies an objection - but he sees before him, behind the open doorway of the cabin, a thing that throws him into a fit of excitement. By my grandmother's lace, he shouts, it's Eshu dance wand!
Without word from Pepple, he springs into the cabin and examines the dance wand with delight. Then with shock. And revulsion.
Oh sir, he says looking from within the cabin at Pepple, oh sir - this is stolen. This is a stolen relic. It caught me by surprise only because our museum had one exactly like this before the first wave of robberies by the African Nativist League. I see now, by the markings, that it's one in the same. Of course they said they planned to relocate all the items to their homelands. A shame when one comes across their true destination: into the hands of men with little understanding of their true value.
Pepple frowns.
Present company excluded, of course, adds the Curator quickly.
Please put down the totem and return to the oak, says Pepple flatly. He leans back in his chair, takes out the folded notebook paper, and begins studying it again.
The Curator puts down the totem and leaves without word.
The Custodian arrives the next day in haste. He twitches slightly. It takes less than a second for the Curator to decide he's not a man worth knowing. They prepare for the duel quickly.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Cryptographer v. Curator
The Cryptographer asks Pepple what he plans to broadcast. Pepple looks at him, then up at the antenna attached to his home.
That's not a broadcasting antenna, explains Pepple, it's to receive radio signals. It needs to be high to clear the walls of the valley.
Funny you mention radio, the Cryptographer says. I was just talking with... - he turns back to the grounds, where the Undertaker, waist-deep in a newly dug grave, is hard at work - I was recently talking about a signal I listen to on the AM band, between registered stations.
Pepple says he knows the one. It's the same station he listens to. It's why, he says, I asked the Undertaker to help me set up the antenna.
The Cryptographer, pleased to be together with a fellow aficionado, begins talking rapidly about his experience with the station (extensive), how he came across the station (by chance), and the time he spends trying to decipher the code (nights, weekends, when not at work for his corporation).
What do you do for the corporation?
That's classified, says the Cryptographer. Then he considers where he is and the slim likelihood of Pepple contacting his HR department. Well, he confides, try to crack the codes used by other corporations, mostly. I'm in a large department.
Have you found a pattern?
The Cryptographer grows very serious. The only patterns that I've noticed have to do with slight variations in the theme of the phrases spoken during the two equinox. It gets somewhat violent. I have theories on other events throughout the year, but it's too early to tell whether these are valid or not.
And you? the Cryptographer asks.
I listen to it because others listen to it.
Not many know about it.
People to the east do, says Pepple, and people to the west do: it's taken as religion in the east and entertainment in the west.
Pepple returns to his cabin to continue listening to the signal. The Cryptographer waves to him as he walks back to the grounds. Pepple nods through his small window.
The next day the Curator arrives. It's a sunny morning, very hot and humid. The Curator's a stout man. He sweats profusely, gasping for breath as he walks across the grounds. He pats himself down a handkerchief on reaching the oak, leaning back dramatically against the trunk.
My gracious, he sighs. What a journey that was.
After calming himself, he reaches in his pocket and hands the Cryptographer his card. It reads:
Head Curator
African Collection
Museum of ----------
The Cryptographer apologizes for a lack of card on his part.
It's fine, it's fine, young man, he says. I'm disappointed enough as it is to forget your very mild transgression. You see, I only recently heard a favorable ruling in favor of our museum, securing our possession of all items in our present collection - with the exception of one rather coarse jeweled crown. You would think I'd be jumping for joy. Until I received the telegraph demanding my attendance, I was! But now - what a shame, what a loss to be sequestered far from the museum.
He paused.
I don't suppose you're a person who believes that artifacts of historical importance belong in the hands of nations ill-equipped to safeguard them?
The Cryptographer says he hadn't given it much thought.
Well, if you were I'd challenge you to a duel even before the duel we are, by duty, bound to perform! Why, if I could count the times I met a man whose heart bled in ignorance for those countries. Not knowing as I do that half of all the historical treasures in their native land are either stolen or sold to poachers and smugglers, who resell them to private concerns god knows where! No, sir! Thomas Bruce was right in his relocation! And we're right in ours!
The Curator collapses back against the oak. It's several minutes before he's able to stand and select his weapon.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
That's not a broadcasting antenna, explains Pepple, it's to receive radio signals. It needs to be high to clear the walls of the valley.
Funny you mention radio, the Cryptographer says. I was just talking with... - he turns back to the grounds, where the Undertaker, waist-deep in a newly dug grave, is hard at work - I was recently talking about a signal I listen to on the AM band, between registered stations.
Pepple says he knows the one. It's the same station he listens to. It's why, he says, I asked the Undertaker to help me set up the antenna.
The Cryptographer, pleased to be together with a fellow aficionado, begins talking rapidly about his experience with the station (extensive), how he came across the station (by chance), and the time he spends trying to decipher the code (nights, weekends, when not at work for his corporation).
What do you do for the corporation?
That's classified, says the Cryptographer. Then he considers where he is and the slim likelihood of Pepple contacting his HR department. Well, he confides, try to crack the codes used by other corporations, mostly. I'm in a large department.
Have you found a pattern?
The Cryptographer grows very serious. The only patterns that I've noticed have to do with slight variations in the theme of the phrases spoken during the two equinox. It gets somewhat violent. I have theories on other events throughout the year, but it's too early to tell whether these are valid or not.
And you? the Cryptographer asks.
I listen to it because others listen to it.
Not many know about it.
People to the east do, says Pepple, and people to the west do: it's taken as religion in the east and entertainment in the west.
Pepple returns to his cabin to continue listening to the signal. The Cryptographer waves to him as he walks back to the grounds. Pepple nods through his small window.
The next day the Curator arrives. It's a sunny morning, very hot and humid. The Curator's a stout man. He sweats profusely, gasping for breath as he walks across the grounds. He pats himself down a handkerchief on reaching the oak, leaning back dramatically against the trunk.
My gracious, he sighs. What a journey that was.
After calming himself, he reaches in his pocket and hands the Cryptographer his card. It reads:
Head Curator
African Collection
Museum of ----------
The Cryptographer apologizes for a lack of card on his part.
It's fine, it's fine, young man, he says. I'm disappointed enough as it is to forget your very mild transgression. You see, I only recently heard a favorable ruling in favor of our museum, securing our possession of all items in our present collection - with the exception of one rather coarse jeweled crown. You would think I'd be jumping for joy. Until I received the telegraph demanding my attendance, I was! But now - what a shame, what a loss to be sequestered far from the museum.
He paused.
I don't suppose you're a person who believes that artifacts of historical importance belong in the hands of nations ill-equipped to safeguard them?
The Cryptographer says he hadn't given it much thought.
Well, if you were I'd challenge you to a duel even before the duel we are, by duty, bound to perform! Why, if I could count the times I met a man whose heart bled in ignorance for those countries. Not knowing as I do that half of all the historical treasures in their native land are either stolen or sold to poachers and smugglers, who resell them to private concerns god knows where! No, sir! Thomas Bruce was right in his relocation! And we're right in ours!
The Curator collapses back against the oak. It's several minutes before he's able to stand and select his weapon.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Cricketer v. Cryptographer
I think I've wasted my life, says the Cricketer above the drone of crickets, on cricket.
The Cryptographer nods.
It's a silly sort of profession to keep in this country, he continues.
The Cryptographer reluctantly agrees.
What's more, it's a boring game, isn't it? I wish I'd never been approached by the Coach and the university's Financier. I could be in Trinidad now. The money wasn't as good, but life was grand. I see that in retrospect.
Though the Cryptographer's occupation is somewhat obscure, it's an occupation that's necessarily obscure, and thus would be obscure anywhere. It's obscurity that he's fascinated by.
There's a radio channel that emits on a frequency just between two stations on the upper band of the AM dial, he says. And on this station there's repeated a series of phrases, sometimes a series of numbers coupled with words, or letters coupled with numbers, or numbers coupled with phrases, or phrases coupled with words, that together make no apparent sense at all. I've spent the last several years trying to decode them.
Have you?
I don't know, says the Cryptographer. At times I think I might have. Others times I don't.
The Cricketer asks where the signal's broadcast from. The Cryptographer hesitates.
One locality, he says, seems to emit from around this area. Maybe near the great wind turbines to the north. But I've heard that other locations mirror the same phrases exactly. They're scattered across the world.
In an odd circumstance, it's just then that Pepple - with the questionable help of the Undertaker - erects a tall aluminum transmission antenna connected directly to his cabin. The two duelists watch as their two counterparts regard their work from a distance, wipe off their hands, and part ways.
As for the duelists -
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
The Cryptographer nods.
It's a silly sort of profession to keep in this country, he continues.
The Cryptographer reluctantly agrees.
What's more, it's a boring game, isn't it? I wish I'd never been approached by the Coach and the university's Financier. I could be in Trinidad now. The money wasn't as good, but life was grand. I see that in retrospect.
Though the Cryptographer's occupation is somewhat obscure, it's an occupation that's necessarily obscure, and thus would be obscure anywhere. It's obscurity that he's fascinated by.
There's a radio channel that emits on a frequency just between two stations on the upper band of the AM dial, he says. And on this station there's repeated a series of phrases, sometimes a series of numbers coupled with words, or letters coupled with numbers, or numbers coupled with phrases, or phrases coupled with words, that together make no apparent sense at all. I've spent the last several years trying to decode them.
Have you?
I don't know, says the Cryptographer. At times I think I might have. Others times I don't.
The Cricketer asks where the signal's broadcast from. The Cryptographer hesitates.
One locality, he says, seems to emit from around this area. Maybe near the great wind turbines to the north. But I've heard that other locations mirror the same phrases exactly. They're scattered across the world.
In an odd circumstance, it's just then that Pepple - with the questionable help of the Undertaker - erects a tall aluminum transmission antenna connected directly to his cabin. The two duelists watch as their two counterparts regard their work from a distance, wipe off their hands, and part ways.
As for the duelists -
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Cricketer v. Crofter
The Undertaker's a man in early old age. He wears jeans and a tattered, long-sleeved flannel shirt - even the hottest weather - over a tall, stooped, sinewy frame. His face is long and coarse and dark, peppered stubble rising just a half-inch from his sunken eyes. His teeth are yellow, with specs of decay against the gums, red and inflamed. He smokes cigarettes rolled from a pouch of loose leaf tobacco kept in his back pocket. There's a deep cynicism about him, and he wears no ring.
It's noted that he drives to and from the burial ground in an old, filthy pick-up, with a cab mostly denuded of paint, with paint flaking off in small chips revealing the gray plastic underneath. Where he lives is a mystery.
It's on the topic of the Undertaker that the Cricketer speaks to Pepple.
See here, good fellow, says the Cricketer, I hate to be so vocal over this, but your man there shows terrible class - a sort of violent eagerness - when first stripping the bodies for burial.
The Cricketer speaks with a clipped accent. His tone is affable, but direct.
I understand the difficulty in finding help - especially in these times! - but the tremendous enthusiasm by which the old whosit goes about his job is apt to strike one as, well, considering the task performed, somewhat disrespectful to the soul of the departed, you understand.
Pepple takes the Cricketer's complaint under submission.
The Crofter arrives much later. Given that she is in every way an insufferable bore, there's no need to recount any of the discussion between the duelists.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
It's noted that he drives to and from the burial ground in an old, filthy pick-up, with a cab mostly denuded of paint, with paint flaking off in small chips revealing the gray plastic underneath. Where he lives is a mystery.
It's on the topic of the Undertaker that the Cricketer speaks to Pepple.
See here, good fellow, says the Cricketer, I hate to be so vocal over this, but your man there shows terrible class - a sort of violent eagerness - when first stripping the bodies for burial.
The Cricketer speaks with a clipped accent. His tone is affable, but direct.
I understand the difficulty in finding help - especially in these times! - but the tremendous enthusiasm by which the old whosit goes about his job is apt to strike one as, well, considering the task performed, somewhat disrespectful to the soul of the departed, you understand.
Pepple takes the Cricketer's complaint under submission.
The Crofter arrives much later. Given that she is in every way an insufferable bore, there's no need to recount any of the discussion between the duelists.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Cricketer v. Crier
The Cricketer, once a fabled player in his homeland, is unappreciated in the city. He has been for two years, ever since agreeing to join as ringer for a team of cricketers, called the Salt Potatoes. Offered much more money than he'd ever make back in his homeland, he signed an extended contract. Their last game was attended by twenty seven people, mostly relatives of the players. For him it's been - to say the least - a lesson in humility.
Though wealthier, he's much more kind than he was back home.
So when the new man arrives - the crooked old man first seen the day before, the Gravedigger - when the new man arrives to carry off the dead, the Cricketer smiles and nods politely. The Undertaker screws his eyes in a wry expression and snorts. He searches the Cowboy's corpse, then drags him off. Pepple reads in the shade cast by the cabin.
The Crier arrives wearing the uniform he was given at the historical reenactment attraction, complete with bronze bell.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Though wealthier, he's much more kind than he was back home.
So when the new man arrives - the crooked old man first seen the day before, the Gravedigger - when the new man arrives to carry off the dead, the Cricketer smiles and nods politely. The Undertaker screws his eyes in a wry expression and snorts. He searches the Cowboy's corpse, then drags him off. Pepple reads in the shade cast by the cabin.
The Crier arrives wearing the uniform he was given at the historical reenactment attraction, complete with bronze bell.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Cowboy v. Cricketer
The Cricketer introduces himself. He and the Cowboy have a pleasant discussion on the topic of Keats.
While they discuss Keats, whom the Cowboy tells the Cricketer is the finest poet to read while riding alone on the prairie, a crooked old man drives a pickup to the road, walks across the northern field, where he meets with Pepple outside the caretaker's cabin. They talk for several minutes before the man leaves.
At some point the Cricketer and the Cowboy find themselves at an impasse: they can't decide which poem is better: Ode to a Nightingale or When I have fears that I may cease to be. A fistfight ensues.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
While they discuss Keats, whom the Cowboy tells the Cricketer is the finest poet to read while riding alone on the prairie, a crooked old man drives a pickup to the road, walks across the northern field, where he meets with Pepple outside the caretaker's cabin. They talk for several minutes before the man leaves.
At some point the Cricketer and the Cowboy find themselves at an impasse: they can't decide which poem is better: Ode to a Nightingale or When I have fears that I may cease to be. A fistfight ensues.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Correspondent v. Cowboy
Without a line of communication to the outside, without the means to reach anyone that might broadcast her story to a wider audience, the Correspondent grows increasingly despondent. If she had access to liquor, she probably would have drowned herself. Instead, spurred by disillusion and the gruesome knowledge that her own end probably wasn't far in coming, she finds reprieve in acting on the most exciting aspect of her profession, leaving aside all discipline and better sense that serve as counterpoints to unbridled curiosity. She enters the forest.
She makes her entrance on the northern edge by a pile of bleached elk bones, heading east south east.
At first she pushes her way through the dense underbrush, stumbling over craggy stones, the thick and intertwining roots of century-old trees. It isn't long before she comes to a path. It isn't great, not wide - at most, she reflects, a game run. She takes it, her small frame alternately stooping under low branches and vaulting lightly over fallen trunks.
It empties eventually onto a small clearing. A tremendous moss lined granite boulder - a titanic glacial erratic - sits in the center of the clearing, and a makeshift lean-to braces against its northern edge. Her heart pounds as she peers under the low hang of the branch-lined roof. Apart from a pile of leaves, the only object within is white and half-hidden. With a stick she wipes away the leaves. Her stomach drops as she recognizes what's before her: a human femur, with red ribbons tied to one end, a long column of notches cut along the side.
She hears someone cough behind her. She swivels, barely able to hold back a scream.
Pepple stands with the Mauser strapped across his chest. He nods.
This was close to where they gave me this, he says, touching the scar across his cheek.
He steps by her, takes the stick from her hand, bends down and wipes the leaves back across the bone totem.
They use this cabin now as a way point, a border camp. If you uncover more leaves you'll see a small fire pit there, a cache of tools there.
He points with the stick to an indentation in the earth a few feet from the lean-to.
The Correspondent asks who they are. Pepple looks off to the east. I need you to return to the grounds, he says. You can't be here.
Following Pepple's eyes into the dark forest, she feels the uneasy sensation that eyes were watching them from just behind the furthest branch. Pepple takes another deer path west. She follows. Soon they reach the grounds.
They emerge to the sight of the cowboy practicing his quickdraw. He wears denim and tucked flannel. It's not right, he contends to fight a lady. But given her insistence and the great distance from the West, he concedes that things may be done differently in other parts.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Correspondent v. Courier
The anger she felt over having a cell phone shot from her face and communication with her Editor interrupted wanes. At leats to the point where she can pretend to affect the open affability of her profession. Still, Pepple refuses to answer any questions.
Who are you? Where are you from? What's your real job here?
(She also wants to ask about the beard he'd grown - itself a fantastic throwback to an earlier aristocratic age; pointed at the bottom, with thick mustaches to either side - but refrains.)
He offers her coffee served in a chipped ceramic mug. Hungry, thirsty, she accepts. It tastes much better than expected. It's followed by a hard biscuit. It's broken in half, split between them.
At least tell me how you cut yourself, she says finally.
Whether it's her persistence, slight guilt over having shot the phone from her face, or the simple pleasure afforded by sharing a small meal with an attractive woman, Pepple can't say why he answers her, but he does:
There are people living in the forest, he says simply.
What sort of people?
They follow to a questionable set of ethics.
Am I in danger?
Pepple thinks. You should be fine if stay within the grounds, he concludes. They haven't left the forest yet.
Back at the grounds she walks to the eastern edge and peers into the dark forest. It's dense, virgin, or first cut so long ago as to have reverted to virgin wood. An inscrutable, ancient veil of spruce, oak, maple. She stands very still. She hears nothing, only sweet songbirds high and unseen.
The Courier arrives in the same brown, grease-stained uniform as before. His elfin frame stands beside the oak, making the oak, in contrast, seem that much more grand.
He and the Correspondent strike up a conversation. The Courier reveals the nature of his doings over the past two years:
I'm on - or was on - retainer by the post office to handle special deliveries. It's a decent job. I do one delivery a day. Some are easy, some are far away. It all depends.
She asks where he picks up the telegrams.
Post office box, he says blandly. Until they stopped coming two days ago, and a man that looked just like me - won't tell you how hard it must have been to find my replacement - came to my door and gave me the same kind of telegram I usually deliver, addressed to me.
What was your first delivery?
It was to a little person, he says, adjusting his glasses. Two years to the day.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Who are you? Where are you from? What's your real job here?
(She also wants to ask about the beard he'd grown - itself a fantastic throwback to an earlier aristocratic age; pointed at the bottom, with thick mustaches to either side - but refrains.)
He offers her coffee served in a chipped ceramic mug. Hungry, thirsty, she accepts. It tastes much better than expected. It's followed by a hard biscuit. It's broken in half, split between them.
At least tell me how you cut yourself, she says finally.
Whether it's her persistence, slight guilt over having shot the phone from her face, or the simple pleasure afforded by sharing a small meal with an attractive woman, Pepple can't say why he answers her, but he does:
There are people living in the forest, he says simply.
What sort of people?
They follow to a questionable set of ethics.
Am I in danger?
Pepple thinks. You should be fine if stay within the grounds, he concludes. They haven't left the forest yet.
Back at the grounds she walks to the eastern edge and peers into the dark forest. It's dense, virgin, or first cut so long ago as to have reverted to virgin wood. An inscrutable, ancient veil of spruce, oak, maple. She stands very still. She hears nothing, only sweet songbirds high and unseen.
The Courier arrives in the same brown, grease-stained uniform as before. His elfin frame stands beside the oak, making the oak, in contrast, seem that much more grand.
He and the Correspondent strike up a conversation. The Courier reveals the nature of his doings over the past two years:
I'm on - or was on - retainer by the post office to handle special deliveries. It's a decent job. I do one delivery a day. Some are easy, some are far away. It all depends.
She asks where he picks up the telegrams.
Post office box, he says blandly. Until they stopped coming two days ago, and a man that looked just like me - won't tell you how hard it must have been to find my replacement - came to my door and gave me the same kind of telegram I usually deliver, addressed to me.
What was your first delivery?
It was to a little person, he says, adjusting his glasses. Two years to the day.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Correspondent v. Costermonger
She makes it up the oak, climbing to the top most branch. There, one hand looped around a branch, one foot in a fork, she reaches into her pocket, takes out her cell phone, and checks the reception. On the ground she got nothing. Up top, she draws one thin bar. Her heart thunders as she dials the number to her Editor in the city. There's a long pause before, past horrible static, she hears a pulse. The phone rings. Her Editor answers. She can hardly make out a word.
Listen, she shouts, I know you can't hear me but I think I've hit on something big!
Pause. She strains to hear.
Big! Like front page big! Secret dueling grounds upstate! Like in the movie! Like in SWINGO!
More static - but someone's talking behind the surf. Her editor is listening, or she thinks he's listening. She goes on.
Listen, everything's played out by some weird system of unspoken rule! Burial of the dead... a caretaker...! You need a photographer up here pronto!
Static. She holds the phone out, away from her face, to shout --
Get a pen and write down these directions.... First, get a flight from the city to --
She hears a loud crack from below. The cell shoots from her hand, looping in an arc, falling to the grass. Her hand's left undamaged, yet the shock of it all is overwhelming. She stares in disbelief. She's angry - so angry and disappointed that tears begin to well in her eyes. Looking down, she sees the caretaker standing next to the Costermonger.
Whoo-wee! shouts the Costermonger, excited. Pepple lowers his Mauser.
Thus begins a long string of curses from the top of the oak down to the two men below. More curses as she slowly climbs down - aided by experience from a childhood spent playing with her three brothers - and finally to the ground, where she (all of 5'3", 115 lbs.), marches up to Pepple and attempts to wrench the Mauser from his grip. He pulls it away, slings it over his shoulder, apologizes, and walks back to the shack.
You! she points her finger at the Costermonger's gin-kissed nose, why did you stand by as he shot at me?
The Costermonger shrugs. He said he wasn't going to kill you, but just knock the phone out of your hand.
How does that make it any better? she shrieks. What if he was a poor shot?
The Costermonger large, bovine eyes wander the landscape, searching for a rational answer that can't possibly exist. I don't know, he says finally. I guess that'd been bad.
She turns and stalks over to the tall grass to find her phone. After almost an hour, by small miracle, she finds it cracked in half, a grizzly tangle of chipped LED and fried circuitry. She curses again and hurls the phone toward the base of the oak, where off which it harmlessly bounces.
Career-making story - right down the toilet! she shouts to no one particular.
The Costermonger walks over and offers her an apple. Because I feel bad, this one's half-price, he says.
She knocks it out of his soiled hand.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Listen, she shouts, I know you can't hear me but I think I've hit on something big!
Pause. She strains to hear.
Big! Like front page big! Secret dueling grounds upstate! Like in the movie! Like in SWINGO!
More static - but someone's talking behind the surf. Her editor is listening, or she thinks he's listening. She goes on.
Listen, everything's played out by some weird system of unspoken rule! Burial of the dead... a caretaker...! You need a photographer up here pronto!
Static. She holds the phone out, away from her face, to shout --
Get a pen and write down these directions.... First, get a flight from the city to --
She hears a loud crack from below. The cell shoots from her hand, looping in an arc, falling to the grass. Her hand's left undamaged, yet the shock of it all is overwhelming. She stares in disbelief. She's angry - so angry and disappointed that tears begin to well in her eyes. Looking down, she sees the caretaker standing next to the Costermonger.
Whoo-wee! shouts the Costermonger, excited. Pepple lowers his Mauser.
Thus begins a long string of curses from the top of the oak down to the two men below. More curses as she slowly climbs down - aided by experience from a childhood spent playing with her three brothers - and finally to the ground, where she (all of 5'3", 115 lbs.), marches up to Pepple and attempts to wrench the Mauser from his grip. He pulls it away, slings it over his shoulder, apologizes, and walks back to the shack.
You! she points her finger at the Costermonger's gin-kissed nose, why did you stand by as he shot at me?
The Costermonger shrugs. He said he wasn't going to kill you, but just knock the phone out of your hand.
How does that make it any better? she shrieks. What if he was a poor shot?
The Costermonger large, bovine eyes wander the landscape, searching for a rational answer that can't possibly exist. I don't know, he says finally. I guess that'd been bad.
She turns and stalks over to the tall grass to find her phone. After almost an hour, by small miracle, she finds it cracked in half, a grizzly tangle of chipped LED and fried circuitry. She curses again and hurls the phone toward the base of the oak, where off which it harmlessly bounces.
Career-making story - right down the toilet! she shouts to no one particular.
The Costermonger walks over and offers her an apple. Because I feel bad, this one's half-price, he says.
She knocks it out of his soiled hand.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Copywriter v. Correspondent
That night the Copywriter sleeps the same way he did the night before, with the South Pointing Marmot on his lap, but facing east toward the forest. He wakes in the middle of the night to noise, the sound of branches snapping, of undergrowth crushed by hasty feet. From behind the first row of trees he sees a light, now closer: a lantern, dangling from what seems a pole or staff, but too high to make out the person (obviously some person) that carries it. He watches as it bobs across the edge of the forest for over an hour, back and forth, back and forth - before extinguishing suddenly. He waits, afraid. Hours pass before falls into a light sleep.
The next morning he wakes expecting to see the marmot before him. It isn't. Instead he hears a slap.
A few seconds later he hears another. Both in the direction of the bog. Curious, remembering the lantern from the night before, he stands, stretches, and walks south. There, over the bright green bulrushes that spring up from the north side of the swollen creek, he waits. A few seconds pass before he hears another slap, turns, and - through a low hang of marsh plants - sees a great brown beaver standing on a muddy patch, its flat tail twitching. It bends over and, with quick motion, raises and sends its tail down flat against the water. A great slap.
It's then that he realizes the nature of the place: it's less a naturally formed bog than a flooded lowland, with a small pond held just behind a great dam of fallen trees and branches. It explains the bleached spires of dead pine, their roots submerged in water, met eventually by the distant black hills. Reeds shoot from the spires, and tremendous pads of algae and moss and fleshy marsh vegetation, thick and choking, stretch as byways throughout. Frogs croak unseen; methane bubbles string from the marsh floor; a thin morning mist blankets the water.
The beaver, catching sight of the Copywriter, stops its slapping and dives silently into the mist.
The Copywriter suddenly wishes he'd had the foresight to pack some breakfast.
The Correspondent arrives late. She's dressed for travel, in slacks and a loose rose blouse, with a large purse over her shoulder. Her hair is black, cut fashionably, pulled up in bun. The Copywriter introduces her to the grounds. She asks about what he knows of the place and he tells her, focusing mainly on the marmot, the midnight lamp, the beaver, and the caretaker. He mentions the deaths he's caused in passing. Unspoken rules and all, he says off-handedly.
She takes out a pad and begins writing. What are they? she asks. The rules.
If I told you, says the Copywriter, they'd stop being unspoken.
They can't be necessarily unspoken.
No - necessarily they are, essentially, by definition, uniquely necessary! That fact itself is part of the rule.
How can you talk about them?
You can't. They're just known, he says. To be honest, I'm not really sure which are which.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
The next morning he wakes expecting to see the marmot before him. It isn't. Instead he hears a slap.
A few seconds later he hears another. Both in the direction of the bog. Curious, remembering the lantern from the night before, he stands, stretches, and walks south. There, over the bright green bulrushes that spring up from the north side of the swollen creek, he waits. A few seconds pass before he hears another slap, turns, and - through a low hang of marsh plants - sees a great brown beaver standing on a muddy patch, its flat tail twitching. It bends over and, with quick motion, raises and sends its tail down flat against the water. A great slap.
It's then that he realizes the nature of the place: it's less a naturally formed bog than a flooded lowland, with a small pond held just behind a great dam of fallen trees and branches. It explains the bleached spires of dead pine, their roots submerged in water, met eventually by the distant black hills. Reeds shoot from the spires, and tremendous pads of algae and moss and fleshy marsh vegetation, thick and choking, stretch as byways throughout. Frogs croak unseen; methane bubbles string from the marsh floor; a thin morning mist blankets the water.
The beaver, catching sight of the Copywriter, stops its slapping and dives silently into the mist.
The Copywriter suddenly wishes he'd had the foresight to pack some breakfast.
The Correspondent arrives late. She's dressed for travel, in slacks and a loose rose blouse, with a large purse over her shoulder. Her hair is black, cut fashionably, pulled up in bun. The Copywriter introduces her to the grounds. She asks about what he knows of the place and he tells her, focusing mainly on the marmot, the midnight lamp, the beaver, and the caretaker. He mentions the deaths he's caused in passing. Unspoken rules and all, he says off-handedly.
She takes out a pad and begins writing. What are they? she asks. The rules.
If I told you, says the Copywriter, they'd stop being unspoken.
They can't be necessarily unspoken.
No - necessarily they are, essentially, by definition, uniquely necessary! That fact itself is part of the rule.
How can you talk about them?
You can't. They're just known, he says. To be honest, I'm not really sure which are which.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Copywriter v. Correctional Officer
The rain that falls that night dampens the ripening stench of the corpses on the edge of the ground, left unmoved by the Copywriter. The wind wafts the occasional musty, dank putrescence by the ground near the base, but mostly the smell is of rain and grass and pine. He sits cross-legged, huddled under the black umbrella left leaning against the oak, the South Pointing Marmot on his lap. Falling in and out of sleep, his head droops. One last glance to his left shows a flicker of lamplight dancing dimly through the forest, flickering behind a curtain of trees.
He wakes sitting two feet from a marmot, sitting as he does, locking its impersonate eyes with his, unwavering. The rain stopped at some point during the night, and the haze of early morning clings to the ground, and the oak lets fall great drops in waves as the wind presses overhead. A tremendous stillness settles between the gusts. A woodpecker knocks in the distance, then stops. The Copywriter and the marmot regard each other with sleepy curiosity.
The Copywriter thinks of feeding the animal something. He doesn't have food. Instead, slowly, he reaches down for the South Pointing Marmot. He holds it by the base. With the care and consciousness of movement usually seen only during Japanese business card exchanges, he slowly presents the compass, setting it before his companion. It doesn't flinch during the offering, but watches with interest. As situated, the bronze marmot points south - directly at the true marmot. The true marmot, mirroring the bronze marmot, raises its front paw and touches the paw of its doppelganger. It leans forward and sniffs a bit, then leans back again. The two remain upright, holding hands, for several seconds. Finally, just as the stench of the corpses returns, the true marmot falls on all fours, turns, and shuffles off through the high grass. The South Pointing Marmot continues pointing south.
If you don't do what you signed, says the Correctional Officer, you're in the wrong, and that's that.
She's a terrifyingly brutish woman. Short, muscled, obese; an overflowing mound of flesh and ironed, bleachblond hair.
The two decide to - or the Correctional Officer proclaims that they will and the Copywriter agrees that they might as well - confront the caretaker at his cabin to the north. They walk, and the Correctional Officer bangs her fist on the door. They hear the sound of footsteps. The door unlatches and opens and there stands Pepple, wearing the black clothes left by the Comedian. His face runs with a large scar down his left cheek. A bruise marks his forehead. He looks first at the Correctional Officer, then at the Copywriter.
The Correctional Officer holds up the contract. Just as she takes in a lung full of air to begin the planned berating, Pepple pushes past them, closes the door, picks up his shovel standing under the awning, against the cabin, and walks to the grounds. Caught by surprise, the Correctional Officer waddles behind him, and the Copywriter behind her. It takes only a few seconds for her to launch into the attack she'd prepared, now amended slightly to focus less on criticism for not doing what one should but criticism for not doing what one should promptly and without being told. The harangue drags on for just under an hour, with Pepple never objecting, but only dragging, digging, and burying the three bodies.
If the Copywriter hoped she'd stop after Pepple returned to his cabin, his hopes were dashed. She expresses her outrage and anger even as they stand ready to fire.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
He wakes sitting two feet from a marmot, sitting as he does, locking its impersonate eyes with his, unwavering. The rain stopped at some point during the night, and the haze of early morning clings to the ground, and the oak lets fall great drops in waves as the wind presses overhead. A tremendous stillness settles between the gusts. A woodpecker knocks in the distance, then stops. The Copywriter and the marmot regard each other with sleepy curiosity.
The Copywriter thinks of feeding the animal something. He doesn't have food. Instead, slowly, he reaches down for the South Pointing Marmot. He holds it by the base. With the care and consciousness of movement usually seen only during Japanese business card exchanges, he slowly presents the compass, setting it before his companion. It doesn't flinch during the offering, but watches with interest. As situated, the bronze marmot points south - directly at the true marmot. The true marmot, mirroring the bronze marmot, raises its front paw and touches the paw of its doppelganger. It leans forward and sniffs a bit, then leans back again. The two remain upright, holding hands, for several seconds. Finally, just as the stench of the corpses returns, the true marmot falls on all fours, turns, and shuffles off through the high grass. The South Pointing Marmot continues pointing south.
If you don't do what you signed, says the Correctional Officer, you're in the wrong, and that's that.
She's a terrifyingly brutish woman. Short, muscled, obese; an overflowing mound of flesh and ironed, bleachblond hair.
The two decide to - or the Correctional Officer proclaims that they will and the Copywriter agrees that they might as well - confront the caretaker at his cabin to the north. They walk, and the Correctional Officer bangs her fist on the door. They hear the sound of footsteps. The door unlatches and opens and there stands Pepple, wearing the black clothes left by the Comedian. His face runs with a large scar down his left cheek. A bruise marks his forehead. He looks first at the Correctional Officer, then at the Copywriter.
The Correctional Officer holds up the contract. Just as she takes in a lung full of air to begin the planned berating, Pepple pushes past them, closes the door, picks up his shovel standing under the awning, against the cabin, and walks to the grounds. Caught by surprise, the Correctional Officer waddles behind him, and the Copywriter behind her. It takes only a few seconds for her to launch into the attack she'd prepared, now amended slightly to focus less on criticism for not doing what one should but criticism for not doing what one should promptly and without being told. The harangue drags on for just under an hour, with Pepple never objecting, but only dragging, digging, and burying the three bodies.
If the Copywriter hoped she'd stop after Pepple returned to his cabin, his hopes were dashed. She expresses her outrage and anger even as they stand ready to fire.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Copywriter v. Coroner
Without access to a lab I can't say for sure, hedges the Coroner, but I'm almost 90% sure that these three people were each killed by a fatal gunshot wound.He stands from where he'd been kneeling over the Coppersmith, gently poking the bloody hole in her blouse with the tip of his ball point pen. The Copywriter, ashamed at having killed such a wholesome looking woman, stands silent. He nods. They both nod. Both regard the bodies and nod. The Coroner wipes his pen off with a paper napkin, crumples it, and throws the napkin on the ground. The Copywriter regards this littering, thinks of saying something, but - checked by guilt of the death he caused - simply nods. Shame, they both say. Real shame.
You think the girl killed the other two? ventures the Copywriter.
I'm no Forensic Pathologist, says the Coroner, rocking back on his heels, but I think that may have been the case. The other possibility, given the rate of decomposition, and smell of that first one - the one in shop clothes - is that one died, and then the other, and then she died. All on different days.
Were you... (the Copywriter fidgets) ...called here by the police?
Oh no, says the Coroner. I'm here for a duel.
The Copywriter lets burst a great sigh of relief: Oh, thank Christ, he says. In that case, I shot the girl.
Really? asks the Coroner.
Well, I had to, he says. Unspoken rules. And the fact that she was aiming at me.
So without access to a lab, I was right: death by fatal gunshot wound.
As fatal as they come.
That correspondence corse really paid off.
The two men spend the rest of the afternoon rummaging around for gloves to haul the corpses (one already swelling in the heat) to the fresh graves by the north fence. They look all about, spend time examining the South Pointing Marmot, debate whether to play a game of chess, until the Coroner finally spots the hole in the oak, and he boosts the Copywriter up and empties the hole of its treasures.
They go through papers, a statue of a white nine-tailed fox, a grocery list, the List of the Dead --
What's written on the back? asks the Copywriter. He looks. It takes a second for him to deduce the series.
Archbishop, Archer, Armorer... Coppersmith, Copywriter, and you're a --
Coroner, nods the Coroner. And I dabble in watercolor, but not too seriously, he adds.
Then where the hell, scans the Copywriter, is that bastard of an Art Director. He said got called for a duel....
The Copywriter looks in vein. He crumples up the list in anger. It was only in envy of the brilliance of the Art Director's unique exit from the firm - the first to excuse himself from the ad world due to a duel - that led the Copywriter to do the same three months later - not expecting that he'd actually be called to a duel two days after quitting.
While the Copywriter fumes, the Coroner carefully reads the Caretakers' Contract. He gets the Copywriter's attention. They both read over the fine print. Every day, the Coroner points out, they're supposed to remove the bodies every day.
Bastard! cries the Copywriter.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Coppersmith v. Copywriter
Pepple falls just before reaching the field of two-foot high corn. The Coppersmith runs. He's down, but conscious. She sees his wounds, the tears in his clothes, the discoloration of his shirt, his pants by soil and blood and sweat. Regardless, she leans down to touch him gently on the shoulder. He breathes with steady draw. She asks him if he needs help. Second pass. He lifts his arms, rights himself, and sits up. He blinks.
She runs to the creek, rips the bottom of her shirt, soaks it in water, and runs back. Ringing the cloth, she carefully cleans his wounds: the scars on his neck, his sinewy arms, his face. She doesn't speak. They're both silent. He watches her as she runs off to wash the cloth in the creek, watches as she walks back and begins again. She's young, in her late twenties, not unattractive.
A bear? she asks finally.
No. Couldn't say.
She wipes his brow.
Eventually he thanks her. He tells her he has to leave, to sleep. She helps him up, and - surprised to find that he's the owner of the cabin - leads him north, to his door.
The Copywriter's a large, physically awkward man. His face is sweaty, his hair's an undone nest, his glasses droop to the tip of his nose. Oh God, he says, this humidity's killing me. It's worse than a bear attack.
The Coppersmith reaches for a pistol.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
She runs to the creek, rips the bottom of her shirt, soaks it in water, and runs back. Ringing the cloth, she carefully cleans his wounds: the scars on his neck, his sinewy arms, his face. She doesn't speak. They're both silent. He watches her as she runs off to wash the cloth in the creek, watches as she walks back and begins again. She's young, in her late twenties, not unattractive.
A bear? she asks finally.
No. Couldn't say.
She wipes his brow.
Eventually he thanks her. He tells her he has to leave, to sleep. She helps him up, and - surprised to find that he's the owner of the cabin - leads him north, to his door.
The Copywriter's a large, physically awkward man. His face is sweaty, his hair's an undone nest, his glasses droop to the tip of his nose. Oh God, he says, this humidity's killing me. It's worse than a bear attack.
The Coppersmith reaches for a pistol.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Cooper v. Coppersmith
At night the Cooper sits sleepless. From the quiet, he hears the sound of gunfire. Four shots in total, two seconds between each shot. They reverberate off the cliff toward the west, echoing between the east and west walls of the great valley. The Cooper waits.
The next morning the Coppersmith walks in from the road. She lets out a cry and rushes to the South Pointing Marmot. It was her work, partially: the bronze panels that lined the square base, beneath the marmot, each of a different creature. When she sees the massive dent in the cuttlefish panel she gasps and touches it softly, as if it was her own wound.
I thought I'd never see this again, she says.
The Cooper remarks on the design, the inventiveness of it.
She waves him off. Oh, she says humbly, these were all copies from older panels. The man that contracted this was specific on what he wanted. I just followed his directions, adding a few things here and there.
Pepple staggers from the forest. His shirt is torn and his torso bloody, his face is scarred, and great scars lacerate his neck and right arm. He's exhausted from blood loss and lack of sleep, holding the Mauser loosely, its stock bloody, midbarrel.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
The next morning the Coppersmith walks in from the road. She lets out a cry and rushes to the South Pointing Marmot. It was her work, partially: the bronze panels that lined the square base, beneath the marmot, each of a different creature. When she sees the massive dent in the cuttlefish panel she gasps and touches it softly, as if it was her own wound.
I thought I'd never see this again, she says.
The Cooper remarks on the design, the inventiveness of it.
She waves him off. Oh, she says humbly, these were all copies from older panels. The man that contracted this was specific on what he wanted. I just followed his directions, adding a few things here and there.
Pepple staggers from the forest. His shirt is torn and his torso bloody, his face is scarred, and great scars lacerate his neck and right arm. He's exhausted from blood loss and lack of sleep, holding the Mauser loosely, its stock bloody, midbarrel.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Contractor v. Cooper
The wind blows over the forest and the clouds darken. Soon it drizzles. The caretaker invites the Contractor to dinner. Inside, as the rain patters against roof and sides of the cabin, the two men share a simple meal of lentils and back bacon and black bread. For a long while the two men are silent. Eventually they talk. When the do, they talk about the cabin.The Contractor reassures Pepple of the care that went into his home. The floorboards were the smoothest of the boards, also chosen for their sturdiness, and braced beneath. The boards that made the walls were thick, layered, and any gaps filled with moss. The roof is watertight. This last assurance is proved by the lack of leaks, even as the rain grows violent, lashing against the east wall.
Pepple commended him for the time and care he put into his work.
It's a dying thing, laments the Contractor. He puts down his spoon and sighs.
My grandfather, he says, was a Stonemason. The last with a shop in the county. He cut stone in such a ways and with such speed of practice so as you could hardly believe. All with a hammer and chisel. Selecting right rocks from the quarry or old ashlars from fallen homes far back in the forest - each depending on the job - and with these chipping, chipping, chipping away quick and right, then fitting them like so, like so - for a job as easy as setting a stone wall or as hard as carving a full panel frieze, with vines and foliage and animals, all following a pattern, one by one, till it meets.
That last job, he continues, was his best but now it's lost. A temple or chapel for a wealthy man. But octagonal, maybe circular, I don't know. And I forget where it was built. Then he died one day and the spot lost with him.
Pepple stands from his seat on the bed and removes the dishes. The Contractor leans back in his chair.
Now, says the Contractor, tapping a cigarette on the back of his pack, people like us almost don't exists. It's not a lack of skill, but a lack of patience. Cheap materials, assemble them quick. Easier. Machined. They complain about boredom, but boredom exists either way. And they complain about unpredictability, but where there's the unpredictable there's the failing and the genius of the human hand.
They both light their cigarettes and listen to the rain.
Pepple insists the Contractor say in the cabin that night. He tells him he knows of a small hunting shack in the forest, and leaves with an umbrella, the Mauser slung over his back. The Contractor, alone, uses a candle to look at the titles of the books on the shelves. He moves then to the desk, opens the desk drawer, and finds a slip of paper and the Assessor's silver pen. He jots down a note, then blows out the candle and turns to bed.
The next day the Cooper arrives. He meets the Contractor under the oak. They know of each other vaguely - their sons both play in the same midget baseball league - and so they talk about their son's progress and batting stances.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Constable v. Contractor
After the death of the Construction Worker - just as he falls, and the Contractor runs to his body, checking for any sign of life - an unexpected thing happens:
A tiny, semi-official man arrives in a tiny, semi-official car. The man steps from the car - leaving it running - and walks briskly to the dueling ground. He wears an impeccably arranged yet slightly grease-stained brown uniform, circular, wire-framed glasses, a close trimmed beard, and a short-brimmed brown cap at an angle atop his head. By the two men and one corpse, he takes the clipboard from under his arm and, in a tiny, semi-official voice, reads a common name. The Contractor looks up. The Courier, with quick bird-like movements, walks to the Contractor, takes a pen from his shirt pocket, clicks it, turns the clipboard around to face the Contractor, and asks him to sign. The Contractor, stunned by his apprentice's death, signs. At which point the Courier takes back the clipboard, takes back the pen, opens a shoulder satchel, and hands the Contractor a telegram.
Sorry for the delay, he says curtly. You weren't at the address given.
How did you know I was here? asks the Contractor, reading the telegram.
Your wife, he says. Then he bows to both men and the one corpse, turns, and leaves.
My wife, the Contractor echos. Absently, he folds the telegram and pockets it. He looks at the lifeless face of his apprentice, then the witless face of the Constable, then to the cabin, where Pepple stands, and has stood, watching with an expression that hints at wonder -- and sympathy.
A great wind washes over the forest, and the mighty trees rustle like thunder.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
A tiny, semi-official man arrives in a tiny, semi-official car. The man steps from the car - leaving it running - and walks briskly to the dueling ground. He wears an impeccably arranged yet slightly grease-stained brown uniform, circular, wire-framed glasses, a close trimmed beard, and a short-brimmed brown cap at an angle atop his head. By the two men and one corpse, he takes the clipboard from under his arm and, in a tiny, semi-official voice, reads a common name. The Contractor looks up. The Courier, with quick bird-like movements, walks to the Contractor, takes a pen from his shirt pocket, clicks it, turns the clipboard around to face the Contractor, and asks him to sign. The Contractor, stunned by his apprentice's death, signs. At which point the Courier takes back the clipboard, takes back the pen, opens a shoulder satchel, and hands the Contractor a telegram.
Sorry for the delay, he says curtly. You weren't at the address given.
How did you know I was here? asks the Contractor, reading the telegram.
Your wife, he says. Then he bows to both men and the one corpse, turns, and leaves.
My wife, the Contractor echos. Absently, he folds the telegram and pockets it. He looks at the lifeless face of his apprentice, then the witless face of the Constable, then to the cabin, where Pepple stands, and has stood, watching with an expression that hints at wonder -- and sympathy.
A great wind washes over the forest, and the mighty trees rustle like thunder.
They raise their guns, their guns go off.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
