Duelism

Return of the Nativists

2008-08-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grumbling.

The Ergonomist continues:

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

Shuffling.

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

Everyone is very quiet.

Just hang him already! cries the Expressman.

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

Most of the jury raises their hands.

And the nays?

Only a few.

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

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

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

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

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

His daughter faints. Suddenly Rhetoric’s ears perk.

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

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

Stetson sweeps his eyes across the numerous. He speaks.

Let's resume the duel.

Riot

2008-08-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

I might, he answers.

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

What parties?

Well… we’re a mob. This is a riot.

Oh, says the Grave Digger.

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

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

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

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

Smoke you out, shouts the Estate Agent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I bought you the croquet set, dinn I?

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

What about my food? asks the Employment Officer.

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

And I’m kosher! cries the Escort.

And she’s kosher, repeats the Entertainer.

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

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

Who’s leading?

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

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

No ammunition?

The Estate Agent shakes her head.

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

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

The duelists gather around the tied father and daughter.

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

Tribunal! someone shouts from the crowd.

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

Hang ‘em! someone shouts.

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

Most people raise their hands.

And against?

A few vote against.

Yeas have it, then.

My daughter! cries the Grave Digger.

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

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

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

The duel be damned! the Grave Digger shouts.

Now march. They march.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

The Engine Driver falls dead. Everyone claps politely.

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

First Duelist Assembly (Day 2)

2008-08-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

Speeches Regarding to the first order of business, or

Arguments For and Against the End to Rhetoric

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

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

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

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

Lots are cast. Result: Rhetoric lives.

Second order of business, or

Should we petition for the purchase of croquet equipment?

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

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

Result: Petition for croquet equipment is a go.

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

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

First Duelist Assembly

2008-08-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

They have two main points of concern, namely:

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

With regard to point of concern, the second:

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

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

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

With regard to point of concern, the first:

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

Thus people argue and complain.

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

The first order of business:

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

The second order of business:

Petition for the purchase of croquet equipment.

Intermission

2008-07-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

(Employment Officer v. Engine Driver) v. Engineer

2008-07-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

Nothing, says the Grave Digger.

Nothing, seconds his daughter.

What about the duel?

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

The Engine Driver asks why.

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

What does the dog eat?

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

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

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

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

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

Now?

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

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

Wait. Just wait. We'll provide everything.

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

Employment Officer v. Engine Driver

2008-07-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

My daughter!

Pee-paw!

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

This is where you've been?

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

Oh pee-paw!

Oh honey dough!

They embrace.

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

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

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

Embalmer v. Employment Officer

2008-07-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

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

We have four bullets left.

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

Like what?

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

The Embalmer balks.

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

Out of the question.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After an hour, the schnauzer returns to the oak.

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

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

Embalmer v. Embriologist

2008-07-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

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

At least he went quickly, the Embalmer says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Electrician v. Embalmer

2008-07-24T22:51:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

Electrician v. Elevator Mechanic

2008-07-23T21:20:00.001-07:00

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

Trying to quit smoking, he explains.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Electrical Engineer v. Electrician

2008-07-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

He kneels and checks the wire.

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

He stands.

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

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

They follow the wire to the well.

Description of the well:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Editor v. Electrical Engineer

2008-07-21T22:17:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

Bah!

He scratches his forehead. Looks around.

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

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

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

The Grave Digger looks puzzled.

It's not a complaint, but it is.

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

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

I'm 37.

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

The Grave Digger grunts.

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

The Grave Digger fills him in.

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

The Grave Digger starts digging.

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

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

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

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

Economist v. Editor

2008-07-20T19:12:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

He calls out to the Grave Digger.

Where was this satchel found?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tens, dozens, hundreds?

Dozens, dozens on dozens.

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

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

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

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

So have I, says the Economist sympathetically.

The Grave Digger walks off.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ecologist v. Economist

2008-07-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

This is rotten, he says.

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

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

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

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

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

The Ecologist agrees.

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

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

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

Drill Sergeant v. Ecologist

2008-07-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

How many duels you won?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Grave Digger stops. He pauses, then stands.

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

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

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

We'll go anyway.

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

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

The day turns to night, and night to morning.

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

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

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

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

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

Drill Sergeant v. Dyer

2008-07-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

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

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

The dog's a fast learner.

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

Enemy, boy?

The dog salutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The man's dead.

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

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

Drayman v. Drill Sargeant

2008-07-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

Wake up you sniveling nancy!

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

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

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

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

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

The Drayman feels a pang of jealousy.

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

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

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

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

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

Usually hung over.

Shut up!

The Drayman folds his hands sheepishly.

Tell me who's in charge around here!

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

Bet they did it hopped up on blood and gin.

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

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

Oof!

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

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

Drayman v. Dressmaker

2008-07-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

What are you doing?

Looking for something.

Oh.

The Grave Digger continues his rampage.

Mind if I ask what you're looking for?

Yes.

Oh.

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

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

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

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

The schnauzer yawns.

Dramaturge v. Drayman

2008-07-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

The schnauzer watches expressionless from a few feet away.

Get more water, mouths the Grave Digger.

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

I'm no drunk, says the Grave Digger.

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

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

With who?

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

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

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

Draftsman v. Dramaturge

2008-07-13T20:40:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

Next morning:

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

Doorman v. Draftsman

2008-07-12T18:05:00.000-07:00

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

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

That night the rain stops.

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

The dog scratches its ear.

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

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

I forgot I was wearing it! he cries.

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

The Doormans' Credo:

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

The Draftsman applauds. The Doorman takes a bow.

Dog Walker v. Doorman

2008-07-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

The rain continues throughout the morning.

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

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

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

Seven in total, he says.

You see all seven?

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

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

2 of 7: "Rhetoric"

Rhetoric?

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

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

Dogcatcher v. Dog Walker

2008-07-10T09:13:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easier to catch, says Stetson.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7 of 7: Astronomy.

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

The woman? asks Stetson.

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

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

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

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

Run! shouts Stetson.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amazing, whispers the Grave Digger.

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

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

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

Neither of the other men answer.

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

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

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

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

Run!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diver v. Dogcatcher

2008-07-09T19:20:00.000-07:00

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

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

Stetson watches from the door of the cabin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which one is that?

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

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

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

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

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

The dogs flee east, running headlong into the forest.

Ah spit! says the Grave Digger.

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

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

I'll get those dogs back, he nods.

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

Diver v. Dog Breeder

2008-07-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

The end of Stetson's story:

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

Stetson, what is the frequency?

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

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

The Grave Digger scratches his chest, nodding, interested.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diver v. Doctor

2008-07-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

Next day:

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

Except in Oregon.

Except in Oregon, you're right.

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

Not that I can think of, no.

Maybe you're not thinking hard enough.

The Doctor shrugs.

Distiller v. Diver

2008-07-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Diver arrives the following morning.

Distiller v. Ditch Digger

2008-07-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

Of course, nods the Ditch Digger.

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

The Ditch Digger shoes away a fly.

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

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

Dispatcher v. Distiller

2008-07-04T08:43:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcription of signal heard:

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

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

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

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

Disc Jockey v. Dispatcher

2008-07-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diplomat v. Disc Jockey

2008-07-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

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

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

The Diplomat beats him three times out of five.

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

This is well-observed.

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

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

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

From where? asks the Diplomat, genuinely interested.

From the radio, answers Stetson.

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

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

Dietitian v. Diplomat

2008-07-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

Detective v. Dietitian

2008-06-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pay you well? he asks.

Today I got my worth, the Grave Digger spits.

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

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

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

The Grave Digger shrugs.

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

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

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

The Grave Digger gives a wry smile.

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

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

The Detective tells him to start from the beginning.

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

What legends?

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

How does he fit in, the caretaker?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Detective v. Dictator

2008-06-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

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

What's going on here? he says.

Pepple looks up. Excuse me? he blinks.

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

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

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

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

What do you want to know? shouts Pepple.

Who are your? What are you doing?

My name's Stetson van Popple.

The Detective lets him go.

I'm caretaker of the grounds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stetson catches the book, barely.

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

The Dictator parachutes in from plane overhead.

Demolitionist v. Detective

2008-06-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Demolitionist v. Designer

2008-06-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

The Demolitionist asks about her clothes.

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

Demolitionist v. Dermatologist

2008-06-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Demolitionist v. Dentist

2008-06-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Demolitionist v. Dental Assistant

2008-06-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

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.

Demographer v. Demolitionist

2008-06-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Deputy v. Demographer

2008-06-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

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.

Cyberathlete v. Deputy

2008-06-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

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.

Cyberathlete v. Dancer

2008-06-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Customs Officer v. Cyberathlete

2008-06-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

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.

Customer Service Representative v. Customs Officer

2008-06-18T23:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Custodian v. Customer Service Representative

2008-06-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Curator v. Custodian

2008-06-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

...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.

Cryptographer v. Curator

2008-06-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Cricketer v. Cryptographer

2008-06-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Cricketer v. Crofter

2008-06-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Cricketer v. Crier

2008-06-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

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.

Cowboy v. Cricketer

2008-06-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Correspondent v. Cowboy

2008-06-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

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.

Correspondent v. Courier

2008-06-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

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.

Correspondent v. Costermonger

2008-06-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Copywriter v. Correspondent

2008-06-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Copywriter v. Correctional Officer

2008-06-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

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.

Copywriter v. Coroner

2008-06-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Coppersmith v. Copywriter

2008-06-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Cooper v. Coppersmith

2008-06-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Contractor v. Cooper

2008-06-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Constable v. Contractor

2008-06-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Constable v. Construction Worker

2008-05-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

The workmen work all day. What's left of the hideous shack are only those materials that could not be applied to the new: absurdly warped planks, rotted wood, rusted chicken wire, rusted metal sheets, and so on. An irregular rhomboid of dead grass outlines the spot where the old shack lay. In the middle of this unnatural clearing stands an incongruous two-foot red rock, once claimed by weeds encroached upon it from the well, but now bare and bright, casting a shadow in the noonday sun.

Nearby the workmen weatherproof the clapboard cabin with moss from the forest to the east.

As their work nears completion, the Constable arrives and, in no easy terms, requests housing. The workmen look to Pepple. Pepple twists his gaze. The Constable looks inside, through a doorway open to the west.

The cabin is ten feet long by ten feet wide, with an arched roof ten feet at its peak. The interior is clean and uncluttered. A single bed sits at one end, made with cloth stitched together from the best of those clothes belonging to previous duelists. Likewise, curtains for the three windows (north, east, and south) have been made from similar reclaimed cloth. A chair and desk sit facing south. The small franklin stove squats in the northeast corner, atop which lies a cast-iron pot. Beside the stove is a small table or cupboard stacked with unlabeled jars. Shelves line the cabin above the desk and above the bed, and the shelves are full with a variety of books, all old and many mouldering.

One workman - after a look from Pepple - pulls the Constable away.

The workmen are two. One is a Construction Worker and one is a Contractor. The Construction Worker is an apprentice to the Contractor. The Construction Worker pulls the Constable from the cabin. He pulls him hard. The Constable stumbles back, trips over a mound, and falls back with a thump on the hard, still-wet ground.

Oh buddy, coughs the Constable, staggering to his feat, that's right where you've gone wrong.

The Constable dusts off his uniform - navy blue shirt, open-collar, navy blue polyester slacks, flashlight, sans weapon - and lunges toward the Construction Worker. The two men scuffle. So close as to prove ineffective, half-punches are thrown, and poor wrestling moves. Finally the Contractor breaks up the fight. With both men apart, the Contractor asks them to reason out their differences. The Contractor, rebuffed and humiliated by the fall the Construction Worker caused him, doesn't listen. As the Contractor talks, he spits in the Construction Worker's eye.

The two have at it again.

Both are separated once more. Both men have a look of inconsolable hatred.

If I didn't have a duel to be at, says the Constable, I'd kill you.

And if I didn't have a duel to be at, says the Construction worker, I'd kill you.

Then they realize that, as luck would have it, the duel is theirs.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Congressman v. Constable

2008-05-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

The Congressman stands by the side of the pit, head hung in a show of mourning, as Pepple shovels dirt and dry bone over the body of the Con Artist. After the burial, the Congressman shakes Pepple's hand.

I hope you don't think less of me for killing this man, says the Congressman.

Pepple shakes his head. He wipes the sweat from his forehead. It's a warm, humid day. Storm clouds form in the west. To the north, the workmen throw a weathered plank roof atop a layer of corrugated tin. As Pepple turns to face the clouds, his face in profile, the strangest notion dawns on the Congressman: that he's seen this man before. The circumstance of Pepple's existence bars him from believing this, however. His constituency may be nearby, but at no rally or public meeting has he met a man as paradoxical: a man of ravaged attire, largely unwashed, stinking of sweat and work, hair and beard matted; yet with eyes dark and silent and keen, back upright, stance assured.

Pepple returns to supervise the building of the new cabin, which is coming along at fast and steady pace.

If only I could place him, thinks the Congressman.

As the Congressmen stands pondering by the freshly covered grave, a marmot shuffles through the grass up the oak. At the base of the oak he stops, stands, and looks. When the Congressman turns, he sees the marmot pointing his paw toward the South Pointing Marmot, who points its paw south. The marmot and the Congressman lock eyes. The marmot lowers his paw, blinks, and shuffles back to the bulrushes along the creek to the southeast.

It rains and thunders. The Congressman opens an umbrella left leaning against the oak, and stands beneath it. The bottoms of his khakis wet.

Then it stops raining.

Then the Constable arrives and the Congressman welcomes the Constable. The Constable voted against the Congressman, and he tells him this within minutes of their meeting.

Soft on evil-doers, says the Constable. That's the reason you lost my vote.

The Congressman asks him to explain. The Constable regurgitates the defense of death by drowning which he'd heard from a Pundit, a guest on a television program, whose book Death By Water was widely cited though never read, or very seldom read, and very certainly not read by the Constable, who restates the argument poorly.

That book was satirical, says the Congressman. I don't think anyone would advocate death by drowning for all criminals, petty or otherwise, or the rioters in the cities, or the strikers. Of course the Pundit doesn't mean that.

Of course he means it, and I mean it, too, the Constable says stiffly. Why write a book on it if you don't mean it?

Someone thought the starving Irish should eat their own babies. Do you think he meant that?

Now that's just crazy, says the Constable. (Though secretly he thinks it might not be a bad idea, given the circumstances.)

Suddenly it hits the Congressman. Stetson! he shouts.

Pepple turns.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Con Artist v. Congressman

2008-05-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

Having felt the wake of a live bullet against his cheek, having heard the dull whine of the bullet pass his ear, the Con Artist begins to grow concerned over the matter of his mortality. He asks himself whether he's led a good life.

It was as good as life as my character would allow, he concludes. To live off the means of a job one loves is noble and fortunate. If I can lure a man as smart as I into believing something he wouldn't otherwise believe, and benefit off his mistaken belief? Well, who wouldn't call that a talent? True, my talent runs against common morality. But think of the virtue shown in the face of this morality! I live well, I'm of pleasant demeanor - even to those that can't help me advance myself. Should I have cast my prowess aside just because, in the eyes of most, it fosters injustice? Does it foster injustice - or isn't there justice in the wittier man's gain? Not taken by force, mind you, but by guile! Is this wrong? Am I evil?

Am I evil? he asks Pepple.

Pepple drags the body of the Conductor (Symphony) to the crumbling pit of dry bone and skull, and throws him in, and piles the soil atop, until covered.

Am I evil? he asks the oak.

The oak waves its tall branches in the late spring breeze.

Am I evil? he asks the creek.

The creek burbles, water lapping in rhythmic pattern over the shore, the rocks, swirling in eddies, joining and rejoining.

Am I evil? he asks the road.

The road stretches forward and backward, connecting and reconnecting with a network of roads universal.

Am I evil? he asks the South Pointing Marmot.

The South Pointing Marmot points south.

Am I evil? he asks the shadowy marmot poking its head from tall rushes along the creek by the forest.

The marmot let's high-pitched whistle, then dashes away through the brush.

Am I evil? he asks the Congressman.

The Congressman uses his tie to wipe dust from the locking mechanism of the pistol he's chosen.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Con Artist v. Conductor (Symphony)

2008-05-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

The workmen hammer away. Pepple sits in his adirondack chair, reading and smoking.

The Conductor (Symphony), or Conductor of Symphonies arrives.

This is a Dueling Clock, says the Con Artist.

Bull, says the Conductor of Symphonies.

Bull?

Bull.

The Con Artist scratches his chin. Bull, he repeats. Huh.

That's a non-magnetic compass, says the conductor. Shot by a bullet.

The Con Artist folds his arms.

Look at me, says the Conductor of Symphonies. Do you think this is my first duel? My second? My fifth? See my arm.

(He shows him his arm, scarred.)

I've been in nine duels, says the Conductor, from Pennsylvania to Prague, I've looked down the barrel of nine revolvers.

The Con Artist smiles. Well, he says happily, you can't expect a man not to try to get a bit of a leg up on the competition, can you?

The Conductor of Symphonies wipes his nose. He selects his pistol.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Con Artist v. Conductor (Train)

2008-05-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

The workman, assiduous in the construction of the new caretaker's cabin from the old, hideous shack, reach a point where a stranger - in this case, the Conductor (Train), or Conductor of Trains - wouldn't be able to tell whether they were

a) building a contained, orderly cabin from the planks of an open, malformed shack,
b) building a ramshackle, malformed shack from the planks of a contained, orderly cabin, or
c) building two structures - one contained and orderly, the other ramshackle and malformed - to stand side-by-side.

(Though, in fact, as the reader knows, the answer is a).)

Flashback to previous day, post-duel:

Directly after the bullet ricocheted off the cuttlefish-adorned facade of the brass panel of the Compasssmith's South Pointing Marmot, affixed to the Con Artist's chest for means of protection against bullets, two noises were heard.

Noise heard upon ricochet:

PING!

Second noise: death groan of Concierge:

Aauuaghhghhhhhhh.....

A bit later, in an attempt to replace the panel, the Con Artist finds that it doesn't snap back into place as it did so easily the previous day. Instead, because of the large dent in the cuttlefish's head, one side of the panel sticks out noticeably.

Return to the moment of the entry of the Conductor of Trains:

What in hot hell is this? the Conductor of Trains asks. He looks down at the South Pointing Marmot.

The Con Artist plays amazement. You haven't heard of the Dueling Clock? he cries.

The Conductor of Trains mumbles.

Oh, says the Con Artist, surely you have. No self-respecting, high-class duelist would ever duel without one.

The Dueling Clock?

The Dueling Clock!

The Conductor of Train nods slightly. Hm, yes, he murmurs, I think I have read about this....

Of course you've read about it, reassures the Con Artist. It's the device that ended the fashion of seconds. Why have seconds - why have a judge - when you have the Dueling Clock? When the bell rings once, the marmot turns, and when the marmot turns twice - a bell at each twelve - on the second twelve - pop! Both pistols off.

The Dueling Clock.

The Dueling Clock!

Huh, says the Conductor of Trains. I never thought it'd be this small, I suppose.

Small but priceless. Even if it is slightly damaged.

The Conductor of Trains looks at the hole in the side. He shakes his head in pity. Well, he says, I suppose it's bound to happen every so often.

You've got that right, smiles the Con Artist. He waves his hands over the pistols. Shall we? he asks.

They raise their guns. The Conductor (Trains) keeps his eyes welded to the Dueling Clock. A gun goes off.

Con Artist v. Concierge

2008-05-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

You seem like a pretty shrewd guy, says the Con Artist, his hand resting on the Compasssmaker’s South Pointing Marmot. How much do you think we could get for this?

Pepple shrugs. He grabs the Compasssmith’s corpse under its arms and drags it off to the grave up north.

When he walks back the Con Artist, using a pen knife, pops open the thick south panel of the box beneath the bronze marmot. The two men look inside. They see a labyrinth of gears, locked together in seemingly chaotic fashion, but somehow combined, serving purpose—and alive. Any motion, even the natural tremor of the Con Artist’s hands, causes the gears to flutter and breathe. From deep within they hear (just behind the drone of crickets) the hum of tiny gyroscopes. A swift motion causes a flurry of spinning and wheeling. And yet, apart from the hum of the gyroscopes, the gears make no sound. The Con Artist replaces the panel. It locks into place.

Listen, says the Con Artist, I read that contract up there. I know that while this might not be mine, it sure isn’t yours. But we both know how it could be yours.

Pepple doesn’t take his eyes off the marmot. The Con Artist rubs his nose.

You want it, the Con Artist says, don’t you?

Pepple does want it. He frowns.

Tell you what, he smiles, how about we cut a small deal wherein you help me, and I help you bring home this little jewel? Easy as cake.

Pepple frowns.

Just be a matter of making my way out of here. Getting someone to take my place. Or maybe just walking, I don’t know. I heard what the Compasssmith said, how many duels he fought, and who fought before him. So let’s just cut the shit and start dealing.

Pepple considers.

From the edge of the forest, not far, the two men hear a high-pitched whistle. They turn. Nothing.

Pepple look the Con Artist in the eye. He walks off.

Gone, the Con Artist pops out the solid-brass south panel of the box and inserts it inside his shirt, over his heart.

The Concierge arrives, fresh and well-groomed. He approaches the oak, slicks his hair to the right, gently smoothes his waistcoat, and extends his hand to the Con Artist. Very little time passes before he, with a slight Toulousian accent, informs the Con Artist of a murderer who has, since last week, been on the loose.

I saw him, sir, with these very two eyes, from the upper window of a local hotel, says the Concierge. A tall man, provincial, with a beard, together with a tiny little fat man—like the character of Sancho Panza, but with a face of a goat. The tall man shot another man in white, and—before anything else, I called the police.

The Con Artist tells him he was wise to do so.

The Chief of Police picked up the phone. He told me, Sir, right away will I investigate. Perhaps he has made the arrest already.

Perhaps, says the Con Artist. But the two of us have a duel to attend.

As the Concierge takes the field, the Con Artist turns and lightly adjust the brass panel beneath his shirt.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Compasssmith v. Con Artist

2008-05-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Compasssmith walks across the field and watches the workmen. They seem to disappear within their work as the Compasssmith approaches, either behind quickly erected walls or within rust-spotted toolboxes. In this way, by happenstance, their faces are continuously kept from view.

Pepple sits in his adorondack chair, smoking and reading. Though the Compasssmith's presence is obvious, neither he nor the workmen acknowledge it. They continue working, and reading. Finally, after several minutes of silence, the Compasssmith asks the title of Pepple's book.

Pepple's silent for a moment as he finishes the paragraph, then gently inserts a slender yarrow stick between the pages, closes the book, and turns to the Compasssmith. The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim, he says plainly.

Overview of The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim and its creation, by Allen B. Ruch:

Written by a lawyer from Bombay, this is an unusual novel that combines Islamic mysticism and allegory with a strange sort of detective story. Originally a cheaply published book in Bombay, the popularity of the work brought almost immediate fame to its author. In essence, it is the story of a law student in Bombay who surprisingly commits a murder, and is subsequently drawn into the lower strata of Indian society. There he becomes obsessed with finding a "perfect man," Al-Mu'tasim, by analyzing the imprint he leaves in others. This book -- the original version -- is extremely rare, and has never been reprinted beyond the original 4,000 copies.

So a who-dunnit, then, nods the Compasssmith.

Pepple gives a perfunctory smile. He returns to the book.

The Compasssmith rocks on the soles of his feet, hands in his pockets. He watches the workers work. He feels the cool breeze against his back. Then, though feeling awful over the deaths he's caused and wanting nothing more than to talk - not of the deaths, but of anything but the deaths, to take his mind from the guilt - he makes to leave. I'm taking off to wait by the oak, he tells everyone. No one responds. He returns to the oak.

That's the point, buddy, says the Con Artist later, at the oak. - that's the point. If you want something in life, you've got to either take it or make it. Now this thing here - this beautiful piece of machinery - I think the others were leading you wrong. This has gotta be original. Did you ever read about anything like this?

The Compasssmith admits he hasn't.

Neither have I, says the Con Artist. And my friend let me tell you right upfront: I'm a very well-read man. If I haven't read it, chances are it's new.

The Con Artists looks again at the South Pointing Marmot.

Pfft, he laughs. Just look at it. Brilliant!

The Compasssmith isn't quiet convinced, but he's certainly flattered.

You know the only way to know for sure? asks the Con Artist. You've got to ask that weird caretaker. You said he's a big reader, too, right? Maybe he has an encyclopedia in that shack, who knows?

The Compasssmith regards the idea. He thinks its pretty good one. So the Con Artist tells him to march over to the cabin and ask Pepple.

I think I will, says the Compasssmith.

Great! says the Con Artist.

When the Compasssmith is gone, the Con Artist puts six blank shell casings in one pistol. The Compasssmith returns. He seems resigned.

He said that the idea's been around since the Yellow Emperor Huang Di.

And he showed you that in writing, asks the Con Artist.

Encyclopedia Brittanica Eleventh Edition.

Well, says the Con Artist, handing him the pistol loaded with blanks, I hope you have better luck in the duel.

They raise their guns, one gun goes off.

Compasssmith v. Computer Programmer

2008-05-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

The Compasssmith wakes to hammering. He looks north. Across the field he sees two men at work on the caretakers' hideous shack. The two men are dressed in overalls. They wear tool belts. Pepple sits in a low adirondack chair nearby, reading. The morning is crisp and clear and bright.

Their work is the plank-by-plank creation of a new shack using all the materials of the previous shack.

Whereas the old shack was of a redundant, asymetrical, hideous nature, the new shack already has signs of being less a shack than a hut or cabin thanks to precise lays, a raised foundation, and the economic use of supplies; it seems smaller, better.

The field around them is light green with rows of budding corn. In the far distance the Farmer drives his tractor, tilling the corn against weeds.

Altogether, it's a fine bucolic scene.

The Computer Programmer is shy even by the standards of computer programmers. She's dressed in drab clothes, in a plain sweatshirt, and an unflattering ankle-length flower print skirt that makes her already narrow hips seem infinitely narrow, nearly one-dimensional. It seems less a skirt, in other words, than a tube of fabric pinched atop between invisible thumb and forefinger, and from out of the bottom the nervous shuffle of sneakers. She wears her hair over her face.

Each question the Compasssmith poses is met with the same answer.

CS: Did it take you long to get here?
CP: I don't know.
CS: Is the city still shut down, and the towns?
CP: I - I don't know.
CS: Were there more deaths? More riots?
CP: I just don't know.

So they stand. They wait. Finally, that evening, when the workers leave, and

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Compasssmith v. Composer

2008-05-23T19:57:00.001-07:00

The body of the College President is stripped of jewelry, of which there is a good amount. The Compasssmith watches. He asks whether her possessions will be returned to her family. Pepple takes a long drag from the cigarette dangling from his mouth and blows smoke through his nose.

By contract, he says, it's mine.

This causes consternation on the part of the Compasssmith. He feels he should have left his South Pointing Marmot back at his workshop.

Why does every compasssmith have the exact same fear? asks Pepple, fingering through the College President's purse. Always fear that the world will suddenly demagnetize, putting them out of work.

It seemed like a reasonable fear at the time, admits the Compasssmith.

Pepple takes out a folded set of bills from her purse. He pockets the money.

If it's not on you when you fall, he clarifies, it's not subject to my immediate possession.

The Compasssmith nods.

When the composer arrives, he wakes the Compasssmith, who lies sleeping in the shadow of his machine. The Compasssmith starts.

Shh, hisses the Composer. Listen.

The Compasssmith listens. He doesn't hear anything particular.

The crickets. An atonal loop, the Composer whispers.

The two men listen to the crickets - which, admittedly, the Compasssmith hadn't heard previous to the Composer's command - for several minutes. One tone, one pitch - though with flickers of intensity, as some crickets ended their call, and others began.

Gentle Terpsichore - eternal, ubiquitous, the Composer sighs, his eyes shut.

Several yards a way a small finch alights, skewers several crickets, shakes them down its throat, then cocks its head - and flies away.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

College President v. Compasssmith

2008-05-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

The College President volunteers to bury the Comedian. He had said thing to her just before the duel, whispered under his breath, that were - even from the mouth of a comedian - exceptionally disturbing and sexist.

Then, at the end, he stopped to thank me for instituting a college initiative to encourage the cultivation free-range, organic chicken, she says, shoveling dirt over the Comedian's bloodless face. What a terrible person, she murmurs. Pepple smokes.

Pepple leaves and the Compasssmith arrives. He arrives carrying a small contraption. It's a box upon which sits the bronze statue of a large rodent. Though the contraption changes direction, the statue corrects itself, always reclaiming its previous position.

This is my invention, says the Compasssmith: a non-magnetic compass. Whichever way you turn it, he demonstrates, the marmot always points its paw south.

The College President examines the invention. It includes highly detailed, hand-worked brass friezes along the sides of the square base. To the north is carved a tortoise standing on the back of a snake, to the east a laughing dragon, to the south a stylized cuttlefish, to the west the depiction of men at work in a steel foundry, apropos of the Detroit murals by Diego Rivera.

Exceptional craftsmanship, she notes.

It came to me in a flash one day. I suddenly thought: where would I be if, for some reason, the earth became demagnetized. I'd be out of a job. This threw me into a deep depression. I couldn't sleep for days. Finally, in a dream, I realized that with the right combination of gears and a pre-established south, you don't need magnetism at all. The next day I started on the project. Thirty years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and three wives later, here I am: proud inventor of The South Pointing Marmot.

It's impressive, but I don't think you're the first to invent this, she says.

Oh, I am, he says sincerely. Don't let the charm of its simplicity throw you in doubt: however useless now, I'm the first human in history with this idea.

The College President sighs. The Compasssmith fidgets. But - then who? he asks.

The College President explains.

The Compasssmith is, to say the least, crestfallen.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

College President v. Comedian

2008-05-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

The Comedian's a bald, gaunt-faced, bearded scarecrow of a man, dressed in a black jacket, black pants, black shoes, and small round sunglasses. He smokes continuously, and whines for over two hours on a myriad of topics.

The Comedian's opinions, a selection of topics elucidating:

Abortion. I believe that life begins when the child can shuffle and deal a deck of cards. That's where I draw the line. Terminate the child before he or she can deal a deck of cards and it's a lawful abortion; after and it's murder.

Life. Life is one big minefield and the only place that isn't a minefield is the place they make the mines.

War. I'm against the use of military force except as a first resort.

Violence on Television. I believe that there is nowhere near enough violence on television. For example, there's nothing wrong with the Montel Williams Show that Ed Gein and a Troy-Bilt Chipper-Vac couldn't fix. Observe how a single burst from a flamethrower adds viewer interest to this dreary commercial:

"Gee, I used to think that all denture gels were the same. That's before I discovered new--FWOOOSH! "OH MY GOD I'M ON FIRE OH JESUS HELP ME OH CHRIST AAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

The College president suspects plagiarism.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

College President v. Columnist

2008-05-20T20:11:00.000-07:00

After dispatching the Coach, the College President lights a cigarette. She offers one to Pepple. He accepts, and they stand smoking together for awhile before the College President clears her throat.

You haven't shot anyone recently, have you? she asks.

Pepple exhales. He frowns. The smoke in silence for awhile longer.

I'm looking forward to hiring help, he says finally. And renovating my home.

She wishes him good luck. He thanks her for the cigarette. He drags off the body of the Coach, removes his wedding ring, his gold watch, and buries him.

The College President recognizes the Columnist. She introduces herself. The Columnists asks if the college's heard any word from the Chancellor.

No, answers the College President, but no one's surprised by the disappearance. We take a new one once every three years.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Coach v. College President

2008-05-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

If the Coach had any hope of finding a partner with whom to ally and, together, intimidate Pepple, his hope is dashed at the sight of the College President. She floats onto the field wearing a powder blue pant suit, chin high. She places him immediately.

Don't tell me, she says. Men's esoteric bat-and-ball coach.

This is true.

Esoteric bat-and-ball sports the Coach coaches, alphabetically: Brännboll, Blind Cricket, Catchy Shubby, Gilli-Danda, Kilikiti, Lapta, Oina, Old Cat, Pesäpallo, Rounders.

You also gave that gave that charmingly anachronistic lecture on the causal link between the spread of cricket and the defeat of tribal barbarism.

Also true.

Yet whereas the faculty, all gathered for supper and an evening of light talks on sport, had taken the Coach's lecture as a witty, straight-faced parody, it was delivered by the Coach with all sincerity. It was, he believed, the crowning work of his life, a work which he secretly believed might lead to a minor teaching position. For it to have ended with cheers and bellowing laughter was, suffice it so say, a bit of a let down.

He tells her about the hotel. The shot. The death. He tells all, stopping short of his plan to confront the caretaker. She listens. When done, she nods.

And the hotel - it's nearby? she asks. He points to the west. They look, but the view's blocked by the line of poplars along the dirt road that runs the west border.

If everything you say is true - and there's no reason for me to doubt your witness to the overtly symbolic death of a clown by a shabby groundskeeper - I'd first suggest we confront the groundskeeper in question, armed.

What joy! The Coach rushes to tell her that this was his plan, too - yet felt odd mentioning it, somehow. But now --

Well, she qualifies, just because I proposed the solution doesn't mean we should act on it. The first instinct's always the most irrational. However necessary, as they often lead to the second. The second usually being much more rational, and in the end better for all parties involved. Even more so the third. What we need now, she concludes, is to dialogue.

They dialogue for several hours.

In the end the College President resolves to draft a letter of inquiry to the National Hotel Board. The Coach, for reasons he can't explain, agrees that this is the best solution.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Coach v. Cobbler

2008-05-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

With time to collect his thoughts and play back the events that led to the death of the Clown, the Coach grows more baffled. He doesn't sleep that night, but thinks back to the garden, the puff of white gardenia, the long and difficult task of dragging the Clown's body back to the grounds, and - most baffling of all - the caretaker's unexpected celebrity among the hotel's female guests.

It strikes the Coach suddenly - very early in the morning - that the Clown's death was unnecessary. That there was never an attempt to bring the him back to the dueling ground by reason, or force. There only a shot, a puff of white gardenia, and instant death.

There are unspoken rules to any duel, obviously, but what severe punishment!

And it wasn't as if the Clown had lied, either; he had been expected. The Coach stood over Pepple as he methodically searched every pocket of the Clown's white linen suit. He saw him take a fine ivory envelope from an inside pocket, open the envelope, and expose a simple, handwritten invitation. The letterhead wasn't in print; instead it showed a detailed engraving of the hotel's unmistakable facade. The text of the invitation - done in twisting and self-meeting calligraphic script - was too stylized to read quickly; Pepple returned it to its envelope almost immediately, then tucked it into the torn front pocket of his plaid shirt.

The Coach wishes he'd spoken then. He hadn't, not knowing what to say to a man who, an hour before, had shot a clown dead. He thinks he may now. He thinks on this until daybreak. Twice he makes to the hideous shack to the north. Twice he returns to the oak. Soon it's midmorning. Soon the Cobbler arrives.

The Cobbler's a pudgy little man. He wears a corduroy frock-coat, and over his lip a push broom mustache. A life of service has touched his voice with constant tremor, his gestures with obsequious delicacy. He arrives and introduces himself.

The Coach had expected someone more intimidating. What did he expect to do, he asks himself, looking over at the hideous shack. That another man and I might confront the caretaker? Demand an explanation?

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Clown v. Coach

2008-05-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

Immediately after the duel, the Clown tosses aside his huge bouquet of flowers. He runs for the creek to the west. There he kneels down and checks his reflection to see whether he's dead. He kneels there, looking at his reflection, for over an hour. After confirming that he is, in fact, not dead, the Clown falls asleep.

He wakes late the next morning and, after stripping naked and bathing in the frigid water, sets out west.

The Coach arrives just as the Clown is leaving. In passing, the Clown offers a vacant, simple smile. The Coach stops and follows. He asks the Clown whether he's come to the right place, showing him the invitation to the duel. The Clown takes the telegraph and regards it uncomprehendingly, flipping it over and over. All questions asked of the Clown come to nothing or nonsense - except the last. The Coach asks whether the Clown is a duelist.

Oh yes! says the Clown, but I think I've grown tired of it and so I'm moving up and onward.

Up and onward where? asks the Coach - still following the Clown, now hiking rocky former pastureland, making for a small river, and beyond the river, a hill.

I have an invitation at the hotel, the Clown replies happily. He bounds ahead, leaving the Coach stranded, without a partner to duel.

Yet not minutes after the Coach loses sight of the Clown - just after he nimbly crosses a long narrow trunk over the mountain river and strolls into the scrub against the valley climb - after a few minutes of bewildered rest, the Coach hears footsteps. From behind a bush appears Pepple, carrying a ancient, well-polished rifle with telescopic sight. He regards the Coach, nods, and moves past. The Coach watches, and follows. They two men cross the fallen trunk across the river (the Coach nearly falling into the water), and begin hiking up the hill. The foliage harsh, the earth craggy. Yet Pepple moves quickly, and the Coach behind him. Finally they reach a point where the trees - all pines mostly - are dense, and a manicured path appears. They take the path upward through the pines. The path twists. Pepple walks faster and the Coach nearly jogs (he's a shorter man, thick and a bit out of shape) just to keep up.

Finally, the pines open. The two men find themselves at the bottom of an elaborate, terraced garden. Topiary animals (dogs, elephants, horses, lions) and topiary creatures (mythical, legendary, fictional, historic) line a highly refined, arabesque pattern of pathways, up tiled stairs, around gentle fountains, under flowering trees, all leading inexorably higher - to the tremendous, white columned, neoclassical hotel looming above.

At first the garden seems empty until the Clown steps from behind a potted gardenia bush, his arms full of flowers. If he sees Pepple and the Coach he doesn't register them. He continues picking, making his way up toward the hotel. From high, the Coach spots a few guests - all dressed in black tie - looking down intently upon the Clown, but silently.

Pepple takes a stance and raises the rifle, steadying his arm against a nearby pine. He aims at the Clown. Takes a deep breath. As the Clown raises his hand to wave at the hotel guests, Pepple squeezes the trigger. The Clown crumples, gardenias bursting in a shower of ivory. The Coach gasps, his knees buckle. The guests look with curious delight, searching for whence the shot was fired. A pretty young woman in a spring dress spots Pepple. She quietly gets the attention of others and points. They watch as Pepple walks into the garden, followed by the horrified Coach, to carry off the body of the Clown.

The Coach, seeing the women above look at Pepple - filthy, lanky, bearded Pepple - with adoration, the men with solemnity, is thrown into tremendous confusion. As the guests whisper approvingly (he hears the whispers as he works to help Pepple drag off the corpse, even from so far away) it's all unintelligible, and they leave.

They carry the Clown's heavy body down the valley, across the river, across the road, and to the grave. Pepple buries the body as the Coach, resting against the oak, watches Pepple.

Clockmaker v. Clown

2008-05-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Clockmaker explains the Clerk's peculiar problem to the Clown. The Clown seems less interested in the Clerk's problem than his own. Having collected a massive bouquet of wild flowers on the long walk from the town, sneezing more and more the closer he reached the field, he has no place to put them after death.

Suppose you live, says the Clockmaker.

Then I can hold them, answers the Clown, sniffling. But if I die, he says after loud sneeze, they'll all fall with me and scatter and wilt.

The Clockmaker sees no use in explaining that the Clown's flowers will wilt regardless. Even if he did, it would be between a series of ever-narrowing periods of silence before sneezes. They both arm themselves and take to the field. The clown holds his flowers in one hand, pistol in the other. He sneezes.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Clerk v. Clockmaker

2008-05-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

Whereas before the Clerk was obsessed with the similarities between the situation he finds himself in and the short piece he wrote several months prior, his obsession now shifts to the differences.

He's shocked to think, for example, that the situation continues beyond the outline of the situation he sketched. That's to say, that a world exists which perpetuates a repetition of the single pattern he drew. He learned from the Civil Servant that there was a duel that lead to their duel, and a duel before that, and so on, to a point beyond the memory of anyone involved in the chain of duels. From this he was able to extrapolate (being a quick witted man) a universe of duels, and from this universe of duels envision a single duel between a banker and a bank robber. One that may have mirrored his imagined duel exactly. And this unsettles him.

But what unsettles him most is the action by which his duel was resolved: by coin toss.

And the question: is that method of resolution similar or different in the duel I inhabit?

He asks the Clockmaker. The Clockmaker, a Deist in spirit, suggests the Clerk free himself from little worries and find comfort in the mechanics of a system that imitates the universe:

If we start at twelve, states the Clockmaker, we next hit one. And then at one, two. And from two, three. Eventually we rejoin twelve. Yet from within this twelve lies the division of twelve into sixty parts. We proceed along the sixty at a faster pace, and the full count of sixty is equal to one of the twelve. Beneath the sixty lie a further and faster sixty that compose one sixtieth of the sixty. And beneath this further, faster sixty a set of one hundred, which the French call one thing and we call another.

No offense intended, but how on earth could anyone find comfort in that? asks the Clerk.

As if nothing had been any more obvious, the Clockmaker answers: It repeats.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Civil Servant v. Clerk

2008-05-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

The Civil Servant tries in vain to understand. The Clerk repeats:

I wrote all this. Well, not all this exactly, but I wrote something a lot like this while I was at work. That's what I'm trying to say. It's like what I wrote is coming to life. It wasn't you and me. Instead it was two other people, a Banker and a Bank Robber.

The Civil Servant purses his lips sympathetically. He doesn't understand. The Clerk sees that he doesn't understand. He repeats:

The same basic entry: two people meet, they talk for awhile, and then they duel.

The Civil Servant asks the Clerk if he works as a Copywriter. The Clerk replies in the negative. I'm a clerk, and I write at work, he says.

Memos?

And plays. Sometimes short stuff.

So you're a Writer, a Playwright.

I work as a clerk.

You write memos.

I write memos and plays.

At work?

I don't really do much work at work.

You work at home?

No, at the office. I write in the office, at work, when I should be working.

Why not write at home?

I have a wife and dog.

And you wrote this?

Right. At work.

I don't understand.

It isn't that the Civil Servant's stupid; we all peer into the world of others and ask,

How is this?

Yet it is!

And it's a blessing that we can't understand.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Civil Servant v. Clarinetist

2008-05-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Growling stomach. Stroll stroll stroll. Pass mass grave. Stroll stroll stroll. Stroll through field. Stroll stop. Admire flower. Stroll stroll stroll. Knock on Pepple's door. Rap rap rap. Wait wait - What? asks Pepple.

Expression of hunger. Query regarding inventory, comestible variety thereof. Promise of remuneration implicit.

Vague & noncommittal response.

Promise of remuneration explicit.

Pause.

Pause pause pause. Thinking.

Close door. Wait wait wait. Open door. Biscuit. Hard tack. Hard tack?

Definition:

hardtack |ˈhärdˌtak|
noun
hard dry bread or biscuit, esp. as rations for sailors.

Thinly displeased appreciation given in exchange for hard tack. Also, seventeen dollars. Awkward post-exchange discourse. Excuse from Pepple. Muffled goodbyes. Close door.

Stroll stroll stroll. Nibble nibble nibble. Stroll stroll stroll. Pass mass grave. Stroll stroll nibble. Nibble stroll stroll. Stroll nibble nibble. Arrival at oak.

Thirst after consumption.

Arrival of Clarinetist. Awkward pre-duel discourse. Pre-duel preparations.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Civil Servant v. Civil Engineer

2008-05-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

The Civil Servant's one of those rare people in whom everyone confides. Whether it's his girth (ample), his disposition (sanguine), or his smile (wide, simple, disarming), he's built a small world - rising the tortuous path upward through the ranks of municipal bureaucracy - largely on this gift alone. Certainly not on his capacity for hard work (negligible).

Pepple confides while shoving soil atop the Circuit Preacher. His sister left him last night, taking her sickly boy, headed east into the forest. They left, and - Pepple says with unwavering certainty - won't return. The Civil Servant suggests that he leave and search the forest, but Pepple doesn't respond. He continues shoveling.

The Civil Engineer and the Civil Servant know each other. When they greet, they greet as comrades: a nod, a hand shake.

Whereas the incompetent Civil Servant rose the ranks on his charm, the truly adept Civil Servant swirls trapped in an eddy of missed promotions and rebuffed advances because of he favors blueprints, the feel of cold steel girders over politics and people.

They are enemies, these two. Because the Civil Engineer resents the Civil Servant's advancement in light of his idiocy, and the Civil Servant is loathe to anyone who would hold his incapacitates against him in light of his natural charisma.

When they prepare for duel, unlike many others that came before, they do so in silence and with purpose. Theirs isn't a duel carried out as duty, but a duel in love of dueling. And for this, their duel is - when seen from afar - a beautiful matching.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Circuit Preacher v. Civil Servant

2008-05-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

That night the Circuit Preacher has a dream. It's in some ways similar to the Cardinal's Dream. In other ways it's different.

Points of similarity: the dueling grounds, the oak, the forest, the hideous shack.

Points of difference: in that there is no coquettish statue of the Virgin, no Archangel Michael, no booming directive.

The Circuit Preacher's Dream:

The Circuit Preacher stands. He stands quiet. The night wind sweeps across the forest. Clouds sweep across the sky. The moon darkens, and all goes black. Then the clouds sweep past and the moon brightens. It's then that he first notices Pepple, who stands in sharp silhouette by the north border, unmoving.

Suddenly the earth shakes. The Circuit Preacher reaches back to brace himself against the oak but the oak's gone - far behind him. Pepple stands calmly as the Preacher staggers from the tremor. Fear grips him. A fissure runs through the earth before him and darkness shows beneath. Darkness - then a flash of white. White from the gap, flashes of white - delicate bones as roots clawing up from the earth.

The Circuit Preacher falls back in terror. He pushes against the grass, but all for nothing - no distance comes between him and the skeletal hands that grasp awkwardly from the grave. Ten, forty, eighty, twelve hundred - the caps of skulls, the gaping sockets of their eyes as they peer from the darkness and rise.

Still Pepple stands unmoved. Not on human feet, the Circuit Preacher sees in terror - but cloven hooves.

In mute horror, the Circuit Preacher watches as the skeletons stand and regard themselves. They look at their hands, their legs, their caged torsos. They look at each other. Their hinged jaws open and close in silent wailing. All grasp and loll, the only sound in the valley the insectile clack of bone against bone.

A shrill whine. The skeletons turn. The Circuit Preacher turns. Pepple tunes a dusty violin.

Then music.

And the skeletons, as if lifted and moved by unseen strings, begin to twitch. They twitch, then swoon, then - like newborn calves - stumble to life. Now waggling the legs, now wriggling the thighs, now waving their arms, the rattle and clatter rises like thunder - all working together, beating time to the dance.

They swirl and spin now, faster and faster, as the Circuit Preacher presses himself into a ball, grasping at the frigid grass beneath him. He looks up and sees Pepple amidst them now, dancing and playing as they are. He also, the Preacher sees, stoops to grab the bones that the skeletons drop. So that if one dances too harshly and looses a hand, Pepple rushes over, grabs it, and shoves it back in place. The same with skulls, and arms, and leg bones, and anything else - he runs and runs back and forth between the swell of unreal dancers. Yet at no time - even with his baton away from the strings - does the violin stop its playing. In fact the music swells higher, backed by an unseen symphony from the east - from within the shadows of the forest to the east.

Now the Circuit Preacher wills himself to struggle to foot and run. He staggers wildly away, up to the top of the mound to the west. Here, for the first time, looking down on the scene from above, he sees what he missed below:

That the skeletons dance is far from chaotic - rather it's a massive, fractal waltz: a waltz in miniature, one skeleton spinning alone, and then in spinning in tandem with another, and these two both spinning with another couple, and the greater could spinning with two others on each side - and the entire mass of dancers dancing as one, together: spinning all in a tremendous glowing white wheel around the oak. And with Pepple in light activity, running to attach one bone, then the other - back and forth, from inside the ring, lit by the spectral moon.

The Circuit Preacher wakes with a start to the call of a rooster. Dawn.

He's in a state of blubbering prayer when the Civil Servant arrives. The wheel within the wheel, he laughs aloud. The Civil Servant sees his manic eyes, the tears that wash his face.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Choreographer v. Circuit Preacher

2008-05-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

Pepple rummages through the hole in the oak. He stands atop the table dragged next to the trunk. The Choreographer watches him showing an expression of confusion and strange annoyance.

He regards the Beader's kitsune statuette, the Bellmaker's bellmaking instructions / deck of cards, the Archivist's List of the Dead, and the Basketweaver's Ch'mekelekeske woven basket. He takes the cards, jumps down from the table, pulls the table back from the oak, then restores it of its pistols. Cards in hand, he walks off, back to the hideous shack.

The sky clears and the Circuit Preacher arrives. He's a short, unobtrusive-looking man wearing a dark green polyester suit. The bow tie around his neck is tied tightly - so tight as to seem painful. In fact, he squirms and coughs and pulls at it constantly. Sweat beads along his brow beneath a shining wave of set and molded hair.

He introduces himself. She stares.

Don't suppose you're from here, then? he asks.

She blinks.

You from Russia?

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Lituanen, echt deutsch, she says plainly.

Even in Russia I'm led to believe they have word of the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ, opens the Circuit Preacher. Even as far as the northern reaches of Russia, it's true.

She looks away, absently fingering the hem of her blouse.

Mistaking her incomprehension for atheistic snobbery, he gently recounts to her a sermon he gave to a congregation in a small town just south of the state border.

Son of man, the Lord tells him, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel and prophecy against them - and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolatye; and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

The Choreographer shakes her head.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Chiropodist v. Choreographer

2008-05-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

The Chiropodist doesn't speak English. The Choreographer doesn't speak English. Neither speak English. And neither speak a common language.

While the Choreographer understands that the Chiropodist is in a state of shock, the cause of this shock isn't traced to the Chiropodist's witness of the Chimney Sweep's accidental death.

After several hours of nonverbal comforting on the part of the Choreographer (a kind if teutonically stiff woman), the Chiropodist wipes her eyes and begins to replay the scene. She speaks throughout, using exaggerated hand gestures, and frequent pointing - to reference the oak, the guns, the place of death, and the burial.

The Choreographer doesn't understand.

The Chiropodist stops and begins again. Then again, and again. And again. And again and again. She continues repeating the same sequence, each time slightly different - a slight turn of the hand, a slight shift in the series of events - but each time roughly identical. And again. And for the tenth time.

Still the Choreographer doesn't understand.

And for the fortieth time.

Still the Choreographer doesn't understand.

At some point the Chiropodist decides that nothing in gesture can make the Choreographer understand. And yet the Chiropodist continues. She replays the event over. Now with an almost a sickness of movement: a ritualized motion, a catechismic circularity, an oriental numeration. Again, again, again.

Still the Choreographer doesn't understand. And she grows bored. Oed' und leer das Meer, she sighs.

Eventually the Chiropodist hits on an idea. She stands, grabs her umbrella and takes the pistols. She hands her umbrella off to the Choreographer and leads her onto the field. Acting the role of the Chimney Sweep, the Chiropodist stands ten paces away and raises her gun. The Choreographer reflexively lowers the umbrella. The Chiropodist advances. She lifts the umbrella, and raises the Choreographer's arm. The Choreographer's pistol presses against the Chiropodist's chest.

Then the Choreographer understands.

Her gun goes off.

Chimney Sweep v. Chiropodist

2008-05-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

Minutes after the Chief Mate falls, Pepple drags off his body. And then body of the Chief of Police. He takes the Chief's handgun and his badge, his wedding ring and the money in his front pocket. He takes a gold pendant tied on a leather cord around the Chief Mate's neck. Then he buries the two duelists. The Chimney Sweep watches.

Soon after, it begins to rain. It rains hard for a long time. Then softens, and continues raining softly all night.

The Chiropodist arrives beneath a yellow umbrella. She's a tiny woman. Very petite. Simply dressed, but spackled with cosmetics. She walks up to the Chimney Sweep and hands him a telegram. She does not speak English well.

Yes, says the Chimney Sweep.

She points to the telegram. Yes, he says. He points to the ground, then to the pistols, then to the dueling field. She looks confused. She looks at her telegram, then at the pistols, then at the dueling field.

The Chimney Sweep pantomimes a duel. (No help.)

Eventually, he leads her out to the field. She stands holding her yellow umbrella and a revolver. He stands ten paces away. He raises his gun. She lowers the umbrella over her face in fright. He walks over, lifts her umbrella, and raises her hand that holds the revolver. He points the revolver at his chest.

Her gun goes off.

Chief Mate v. Chimney Sweep

2008-05-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

The Chief of Police lays sprawled in the grass, lifeless eyes open to the morning sun.

The Chimney Sweep paces. The Chief Mate sits with his back to the trunk of the oak.

The Farmer sows his field, up and down the field in the diesel tractor. The murder of crows, once fat on the bodies of the dead, alight in the freshly turned soil, pecking for seeds and worms.

The Chimney Sweep brushes his long, shaggy hair. He's in his mid-30s, medium build, fit. He wears a green shirt-sleeved polo, beige slacks, white sneakers.

A professional friend of mind had a dream, he says abruptly. He stops pacing. He looks over nervously, and speaks.

He dreamt that a riot of men were chained into service, all working together as a road gang. And a fat man in a suit came and set them free - all of them - by unlocking one lock in the middle. They leapt up and threw down their hammers and ran home to their families. Then the fat man went up to my friend and said, put all trust in the Unspoken Union. He said, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chief of Police v. Chief Mate

2008-05-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

We were running a load of coffee and cocoa from out of Abidjane. An man paid passage in gold - gold ingots molded in the shape of a woman's finger - and another to buy the papers of our boatswain, who died of dengue fever off the coast of Padang. Where or what he did before he wouldn't say. But he had totems with him - a Nippon bronze, an inlaid mask, a nail fetish, a dog with iron hammered into its neck, face, and more. A strange collection, picked purposefully the world over, held in a mahoganny trunk. At night he threw yarrow sticks; with them and a book of Chinese symbols he said he could trace the future. After he threw the yarrows in a way that predicted we'd be hit with a storm in open water crossing the Atlantic (right to the date and time) the crew believed him.

The Chief of Police nods.

He told me, continues the Chief Mate, that I'd find myself in a field with a tree and that's the place I'd die. He said he'd be close by when it happened, and he'd see me but I wouldn't see him.

The Chief thinks that the man described may be the murderer. The Chief Mate is certain its not.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chemist v. Chief of Police

2008-05-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

There's been a murder reported, announces the Chief of Police.

The Chemist fidgets with a daisy he's set in the button hole of his lapel. He plucks the daisy's petals one by one.

Have you been party to anything out of the ordinary? the Chief asks. Over the past few days?

The Chemist shakes his head. He takes the daisy from his lapel, rips it into shreds and lets it fall.

No, huh? says the Chief.

No, says the Chemist.

Damn, he spits. I'm not having much luck with this case. Especially with the deputy's time taken up organizing a militia to guard the silos at the grain coop. Nothing's breaking.

The Chemist asks if anyone's given a description of the murderer.

The Chief describes the suspect thusly: A drifter. Tall, lanky, filthy. Patchy beard, slope-shouldered, insolent regard of outsiders. Autodidact, crafty, aloof.

Pepple, in earshot of the above description, quits his work, gently drops his shovel and slinks back to the hideous shanty.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chemist v. Chicken Sexer

2008-05-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

The Chess Master's quick death puts the Chemist in an excellent mood. He sings the opening of the famous Broadway musical:

April was the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
But then you came, yes then you came!
And now the sky is blue again!

And it's true. The sky above is, at that moment, blue.

But then the Chicken Sexer arrives, hobbling in on an inoperable club foot, and the sky turns overcast again.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chemist v. Chess Master

2008-05-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

It rains.

Pepple, dressed in a long overcoat, drags Grubb’s mangled body from the shack and buries him feet from the well. The hideous woman staggers from the cabin and looks in the pit before Pepple starts filling it with dirt. Soon after, they both return to the shack.

Using the umbrella given to the Chamberlain by Pepple, the Chemist keeps semi-dry.

It stops raining.

The Chess Master arrives, places a wooden case on the table, pushes aside the pistols, and opens the case. It’s a chess board. What do you do for a living? the Chess Master asks the Chemist.

The Chemist answers. The Chess Master nods. He tells the Chemist he thought as much. When I first walked up, says the Chess Master, I thought to myself: here’s a guy with a little sophistication. Like me. Someone that isn’t necessarily good with his hands.

Oh, says the Chemist, I wouldn’t go that far.

The Chess Master proposes that instead of dueling each other with pistols, they agree to use a game of chess as a proxy duel, wherein the loser metes the penalty of defeat upon himself.

Of course I won’t agree to that, says the Chemist. Because you’re a Chess Master.

Who said I was a Chess Master?

It follows alphabetically. Come on—I’ve been reading Totentanzes since grade school. And this is as typical a scam as in any of them. If it’s not a Knight that convinces Death to play chess for his life, then it’s a Chemist being suckered into play by a Chess Master. Every time it ends the same way: the Chess Master wins. Well, not this time.

The Chess Master’s crestfallen.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chef v. Chemist

2008-05-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

The Chef looks around with casual disregard. He walks to Pepple and strikes up conversation. Pepple stands over the Cheerleader, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. What do you think of her? the Chef asks, gesturing to her body.

Pepple shakes his head.

The Chef asks for a cigarette and Pepple offers one from a pack in his front shirt pocket. Soon they’re both standing, smoking, and talking.

What sort of operation do you run up here? asks the Chef.

Pepple explains. The Chef asks what he regards as the best part of the job.

Well, Pepple says, wiping his hands off on the Cartwright’s trousers, I think in the variety of goods what comes to me day by day. Never do know what to expect when I put my hands in the pockets of these folk. Could be from tissue to treasure.

Pepple fishes around his pocket and pulls out a souvenir pen. Now this here’s a treasure, Pepple says. Not least for its kitsch value.

He hands the pen to the Chef. When tilted, the top falls from Mary in a poor reprint of Carracci’s Pietá. On the reverse a caption reads, “I’m nipples for Naples!”

The Chef agrees. Pepple tells him to keep it. The Chef does, and thanks him.

Pepple returns to work, and the Chef returns to the oak.

The Chemist is a short, thin, dark-haired man in black square-framed glasses. He’s dressed well, with a subtlety of taste that reaches leagues past what one would expect from a chemist. When he reaches the oak, he greets the Chef with a strong handshake and smile, and they begin talking about the darkening sky.

They agree that it’s going to rain.

They agree to duel before it begins to rain.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Cheerleader v. Chef

2008-05-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

The second death comes as less of a shock to the Cheerleader, but the two combined seem almost overwhelming. It was duty at first. Now, she contends, it borders on incivility.

Listen here, shouts Pepple. Maybe you don’t understand how I make my living.

The Cheerleader tries to keep him from searching the body of the Cheesemaker.

What in the name does this ex-man need those articles what are remaining upon his person? Pepple demands. You expect I should come here and do all your filthy work with a smile and glad hand and thank you ma’am without recompense?

The Cheerleader stands, arms crossed. Pepple turns and spits.

He drags off the body of the Cheesemaker, flips through his wallet, removes his silver wedding band, and dumps his thin corpse in the ditch.

When the Chef arrives the Cheerleader tells him about her concern.

Honey, he tells her, If you didn’t kill the Cheesemaker, he would have killed you.

The Cheerleader nods.

It’s hard, but you just have to take the bad with the gouda.

There’s a long pause. It lasts for over an hour.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Cheerleader v. Cheesemaker

2008-04-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

The Cheerleader, a bit traumatized by the killing, takes pains to wipe away the blood near the hole on the chest of the Chaplain’s black uniform. She crosses his arms over his chest and stands watch as Pepple arrives.

Don’t rifle through his pockets like that, she says sternly.

Pepple frowns. He makes to take off the Chaplain’s boot.

Don’t take his boots!

Pepple sighs. He looks at her, then looks at the body of the Chaplain. Finally, after a few seconds, he drags him off and buries him—clothes, boots and all.

When the Cheesemaker arrives the next day, the Cheerleader sits reading the instructions the Bellmaker wrote on the deck of playing cards. Next to her, on the table, sits the Bhikkuni’s alms bowl—now filled with hardened clay. She explains everything to the Cheesemaker and they decide (on the Cheerleader’s urging, really) to repeat the first few steps of bell making.

After a brief search—instructions on the 2 of clubs maps where the best blue clay is found—they come across the fork near the road and the stripe of blue. The Cheesemaker begins digging with a stick he found by the oak. Eventually he digs enough to fill the alms bowl as high as it was before with fresh clay.

They return to the oak and turn the 4 of hearts. This instructs them on how to shape the interior mold. The Cheerleader, who considers herself somewhat craft-oriented, shapes the interior mold per the specifications on the card.

The 5 of diamonds explains the proper way to build a kiln.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chaplain v. Cheerleader

2008-04-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

Pepple pockets the remainder of the cash found in the Chandler’s purse, the carton of cigarettes, the gin, and the chocolates. All her fillings, he discovers, are cheap stainless steel.

The Chaplain, an Anabaptist, meekly chimes in as Pepple drags her off:

Sir, I think—that’s to say I hope you don’t mind if… well, one of those candy bars from that woman just before the, well—you know.

Pepple hands him a chocolate bar.

Oh, thank you very much! bows the Chaplain.

Pepple rolls his eyes and drags away the Chandler.

The Cheerleader arrives as the Chaplain finishes the bar, his mouth ringed with chocolate.

The Chaplain offers his chocolate-smeared hand, which she takes. Then noticing the slipperiness between their palms, they both recoil. The Chaplain offers his handkerchief, but in passing it, it becomes as filthy as his hands and mouth. She declines, deciding instead to run to the creek to wash up. The Chaplain agrees with the plan, and follows.

At the edge of the creek, the Chaplain stumbles and lands face down in a small bed of damp silt.

Face now dirt- and chocolate-smeared, the Chaplain climbs from the creek, sits on the grass, and sighs. And this is pretty mild compared what I’ve done in the past, he says sadly.

She asks him to explain.

When I was first with the army I was with a company of soldiers in the mountains. They were supposed to intercept an informer from a tribe that controlled that territory. They told us to keep radio silence, but on one break I accidentally sat on a walkie-talkie. Only me and another guy escaped the ambush alive.

Then they shipped me to the other war. When I was being through the city to our base, I sneezed so hard I hit my helmet hard against the dashboard. It made such a loud whack that the gunner thought we’d come under mortar fire, and he shot into a nearby crowd of women. That ended pretty badly, too.

Next they sent me to the third war. Basically, I was the one that exposed that war for a fraud. Remember the guy who tripped over the wire and fell into the stage scenery while they were filming the General's live, on-air death scene? That was me.

After that they sent me back to the first war, blindfolded me, and shipped me to our enemies as a hostage. I got along pretty well with the enemy, and so pretty soon they let me walk back to our base. Back, a team of officers beat me with sticks, then had me sent to tend an outpost up here near the Canadian border. Even though no one's an Anabaptist. And now here I am.

The Cheerleader can't believe that she's in the presence of a celebrity.

You're that guy? she screams.

The Chaplain wipes mud from his face, and nods.

The Cheerleader wiggles her hands excitedly.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chandler v. Chaplain

2008-04-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

The Chandler presents Pepple with proposition:

See this check? It’s for $2,500. If you can find a way to get me to town by noon, I’ll give you $500 of it, cash.

Pepple, never one to turn down a good opportunity, haggles her up to $1,000, then throws down his spade and lopes across the field. An hour later the Chandler hears honking from the road. Behind the line of poplars Pepple waves from within an old farm pickup. The Chandler strides over to the truck, gets in, and the two drive to town.

They find the bank. Unfortunately, its closed. The sign on the door reads:

TEMPORARILY CLOSED DUE TO BANK RUNS —MANAGEMENT

The Chandler tells Pepple to stay in the truck. She walks into town.

First the Chandler enters a pathetically under-stocked grocery store. Cans of sausages, condiments, powered soup stock, and processed, vitamin-enriched bread make up most of what lies scattered on the plywood shelves. She approaches the Grocer, who sits reading a paperback novelization of popular movie made from a Broadway musical adapted from a famous poem.

I’d like to congratulate you on keeping what might be the last independently owned in the state. Rustic—that’s what this is. Rustic and true, like the best of America.

The Grocer nods. The Chandler pulls the crumbled check from between her sagging dugs. Let me introduce myself, she says, I’m an independent chandler specializing in organic—

Sorry, interrupts the Grocer, we don’t cash no checks.

The Chandler leaves. She walks across the street to a fast food restaurant.

I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see a fast food restaurant with nice full, clean grease traps, the Chandler opens. She pulls out the wrinkled check.

We don’t cash checks, hon, croaks the Fry Cook.

The Chandler leaves. She walks back across the street to a dry cleaner.

The Dry Cleaner sits on a small white stool with a shotgun slung across his knee. What you want? he demands. She unfolds the creased check.

Do you cash checks? she asks.

No, he shouts.

Then can you at least iron it?

The Dry Cleaner irons the check. While ironing, he offers her $40 for it. They eventually settle on $250. With the money she buys a carton of cigarettes, a bottle of gin, and six chocolate bars.

Back in the truck, the Chandler explains what happened, then hands Pepple $50. Pepple takes the money and drive back to the grounds. He drops her off and drives back down the road.

She meets the Chaplain by the oak. He’s collected a miniature bouquet of daisies.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chancellor v. Chandler

2008-04-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

The Chancellor and Chandler find they have something in common: they both appreciate quality craftsmanship.

Buildings! cries the Chandler, arms jetting up. They make 'em tall now, sure - but they've got no spirit! All twisting mirrored glass and metal. What's so good about the world that we need it reflected back at us from a two billion dollar looking glass that rises eighty seven stories high? Nothing, that's what!

The Chandler's a wiry, thin frizzy-haired woman in a flowing hemp dress and denim headband, makes quick gestures to press important points during conversation.

What I attribute this to, confides the Chancellor while idly fingering his monogramed cufflinks, is simple lack of love. Love of that station to which one was born. Let bankers be bankers, peasants peasants, and craftsman craftsman. I find lack of love, or lack of pride to be the one great vice of the New World. Of my kind - and here I make no lie of baring to you that I am one born to serve, as they say in the better clubs of Beacon Hill - I believe I am a shining example. My work, of course, is to leave these hands of mine unsullied by work. Absolutely, I could have squandered my life on crass moneymaking. Yet instead I turned my efforts solely to matters of social importance: I dine and drink with the best sort of people, and in dining and through witty conversation, I provide a crucial model for them: of a man whose life is lived in hope of benefiting all others! Specifically, as chancellor now of my alma mater, that tower you see off in the distance... of grand ivory.

The Chancellor, impassioned, gestures with outstretched hand to the northeast. The Chandler turns and looks. She doesn't see an ivory tower, but she does see Pepple. He's burying the body of Chamberlain. She wrinkles her nose.

The Chancellor apologizes and explains.

Your university doesn't need organic soap, does it? she asks. Because if your students aren't showering with organic, hand-made soap, she points out, they might as well be slaughtering thousands of fish and birds in Micronesia. A sinful industry: bug-eyed chemists and profiteers the whole bunch of them.

The Chancellor's shocked.

Let me put you down for an order of 2,000 bars of my personal brand, Ginny's Ol' Fashioned Spit-Shine. You know, just a test order. Here's a complimentary sample.

The Chancellor takes the same, puts it to his nose. It smells a bit like musty basement, he says.

Well of course it does! How else would you know it's organic?

He nods, convinced, and writes out the check. The Chandler stuffs it down her blouse.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Chamberlain v. Chancellor

2008-04-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

Though shaken by the quick report of fire, the speed of the CFO's death, and Pepple's impersonal looting and burial of the man's body, the Chamberlain's grateful to have survived. Even as the skies grow overcast. Even, as night falls, it starts to rain.

Collar up, huddled in wet clothes, the Chamberlain knocks on the door of the hideous shack.

The shack, made of junk timber and held together by bent nails and chicken wire, is surrounded by rusted tools, lengths of broken pipe, rain-weathered planks, ripped garbage bags, empty sardine tins, and every other bit of garbage - including a good portion of the possessions looted from the corpses of the dead (the Bhikkhuni's staff, ripped pages from the Bookseller's ruined copy of Denial of Death, and so on).

The Chamberlain hears a bar slide up, and the door opens. Pepple, shirtless, stands smoking a cigarette. He looks worse than he ever has - dark rings under his eyes, hair in disarray, crumbs and jam in his spotty beard, pimples across his face and lips and neck, spots across his chest - from disease or ticks, the Chamberlain can't tell.

Through the dim light inside the shack - everything illuminated by the red coals from the tiny mouth of a rusting, antique Franklin stove, and candles placed in peculiar fashion around a squalid little shrine around which were laid more looted trinkets (most notably the Cardinal's gold signet ring) and a bloodless painted finger - the Chamberlain spies the small face of a sick child wrapped tightly in moldering blankets and discarded clothes, and beside the boy the figure of a woman, face hidden, and nearby her, splayed out on a chair, Grubb's massive corpse. Around Grubb a great mass of books rise like mushrooms: tattered, used, of all colors and sizes, piled in free stacks.

The Chamberlain's decides against his original plan to ask for shelter for the night. He stands awkwardly.

What? Pepple asks sourly.

The Chamberlain stammers, never quite getting around finishing a sentence, never quite making any sense - only cold, and wet, and eager to leave.

Pepple backs up and shuts the door.

Thankfully, the Chamberlain turns. As he steps away, the door opens again. Pepple reaches out, handing the Chamberlain an umbrella. His face, though expressionless, hints sympathy. And so the Chamberlain takes the umbrella, thanks Pepple, opens it, and returns to the oak.

The next morning he relates the events of the previous night to Chancellor, a man dressed head to foot in specially tailored clothes from his tailor in the city.

A small shrine? asks the Chancellor.

With a woman's finger on it, yes.

The Chamberlain blows his nose with a damp handkerchief.

Hm. What a choice little morsel of regional anthropology. I should pass this along to the dean of social sciences. Of course in no way do we support desecration of the dead - far from! - but still... my gosh, just think of the press that would come from the study of this. A backwoods cult? Oh! Glossy magazine covers, a spread in the Times. Appeal to alumni for donations to fund a new department - an institute... the Institute of Alternative Mythology and Atypic Folklore. Tremendous opportunity.

Thinking from that perspective, the Chamberlain admits that what resides in that hideous shack might have been a bit interesting. In fact, the more he considers the entirety of what he saw from an objective standpoint, the more interesting it seems. Until, finally, the horror he felt is in part subsumed by excitement over his bizarre discovery.

In short, he feels conflicted.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

CFO v. Chamberlain

2008-04-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

The CFO stands over the mass grave, watching Pepple bury the naked body of the Cellist.

It's been a difficult few days for my family, says Pepple.

That doesn't explain why you stripped the poor woman! cries the outraged CFO.

Pepple heaves a shovelful of dirt down in anger. Her dress is for my sister, he says. She's lost her common-law husband and I'm trying to make it up to her is all.

And her hand? You had to cut off her hand?

You know--it's all laid out in the contract, mister.

The CFO squints, disgusted, and walks back to the oak. The Chamberlain arrives. He wears a dark suit with a small sprig of cherry blossoms pinned to his lapel. Being a cheerful, receptive sort of person, the Chamberlain patiently hears out the CFO's ramblings.

One arm of company manufactures pharmaceuticals, base chemicals and industrial lubricants, the other offers "green solutions". And on the side we've got a few paper mills, and a failing automotive division, a new aeronautics department, and six or seven offshore textile plants. The universities, they love us for our funding. Lobbyists attached to both parties. Bottom line, we're doing okay. Not great, but okay.

The Chamberlain nods.

But no one knows who the hell is doing what because the goddamn CEO up and leaves two days ago! I can only imagine what they're doing without me. I swear if my Blackberry got any sort of signal up here - well, I'm grateful it doesn't. It gives me time to think about work without work in front of me.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.