Constable v. Construction Worker

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.