Cricketer v. Cryptographer

I think I've wasted my life, says the Cricketer above the drone of crickets, on cricket.

The Cryptographer nods.

It's a silly sort of profession to keep in this country, he continues.

The Cryptographer reluctantly agrees.

What's more, it's a boring game, isn't it? I wish I'd never been approached by the Coach and the university's Financier. I could be in Trinidad now. The money wasn't as good, but life was grand. I see that in retrospect.

Though the Cryptographer's occupation is somewhat obscure, it's an occupation that's necessarily obscure, and thus would be obscure anywhere. It's obscurity that he's fascinated by.

There's a radio channel that emits on a frequency just between two stations on the upper band of the AM dial, he says. And on this station there's repeated a series of phrases, sometimes a series of numbers coupled with words, or letters coupled with numbers, or numbers coupled with phrases, or phrases coupled with words, that together make no apparent sense at all. I've spent the last several years trying to decode them.

Have you?

I don't know, says the Cryptographer. At times I think I might have. Others times I don't.

The Cricketer asks where the signal's broadcast from. The Cryptographer hesitates.

One locality, he says, seems to emit from around this area. Maybe near the great wind turbines to the north. But I've heard that other locations mirror the same phrases exactly. They're scattered across the world.

In an odd circumstance, it's just then that Pepple - with the questionable help of the Undertaker - erects a tall aluminum transmission antenna connected directly to his cabin. The two duelists watch as their two counterparts regard their work from a distance, wipe off their hands, and part ways.

As for the duelists -

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Cricketer v. Crofter

The Undertaker's a man in early old age. He wears jeans and a tattered, long-sleeved flannel shirt - even the hottest weather - over a tall, stooped, sinewy frame. His face is long and coarse and dark, peppered stubble rising just a half-inch from his sunken eyes. His teeth are yellow, with specs of decay against the gums, red and inflamed. He smokes cigarettes rolled from a pouch of loose leaf tobacco kept in his back pocket. There's a deep cynicism about him, and he wears no ring.

It's noted that he drives to and from the burial ground in an old, filthy pick-up, with a cab mostly denuded of paint, with paint flaking off in small chips revealing the gray plastic underneath. Where he lives is a mystery.

It's on the topic of the Undertaker that the Cricketer speaks to Pepple.

See here, good fellow, says the Cricketer, I hate to be so vocal over this, but your man there shows terrible class - a sort of violent eagerness - when first stripping the bodies for burial.

The Cricketer speaks with a clipped accent. His tone is affable, but direct.

I understand the difficulty in finding help - especially in these times! - but the tremendous enthusiasm by which the old whosit goes about his job is apt to strike one as, well, considering the task performed, somewhat disrespectful to the soul of the departed, you understand.

Pepple takes the Cricketer's complaint under submission.

The Crofter arrives much later. Given that she is in every way an insufferable bore, there's no need to recount any of the discussion between the duelists.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Cricketer v. Crier

The Cricketer, once a fabled player in his homeland, is unappreciated in the city. He has been for two years, ever since agreeing to join as ringer for a team of cricketers, called the Salt Potatoes. Offered much more money than he'd ever make back in his homeland, he signed an extended contract. Their last game was attended by twenty seven people, mostly relatives of the players. For him it's been - to say the least - a lesson in humility.

Though wealthier, he's much more kind than he was back home.

So when the new man arrives - the crooked old man first seen the day before, the Gravedigger - when the new man arrives to carry off the dead, the Cricketer smiles and nods politely. The Undertaker screws his eyes in a wry expression and snorts. He searches the Cowboy's corpse, then drags him off. Pepple reads in the shade cast by the cabin.

The Crier arrives wearing the uniform he was given at the historical reenactment attraction, complete with bronze bell.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Cowboy v. Cricketer

The Cricketer introduces himself. He and the Cowboy have a pleasant discussion on the topic of Keats.

While they discuss Keats, whom the Cowboy tells the Cricketer is the finest poet to read while riding alone on the prairie, a crooked old man drives a pickup to the road, walks across the northern field, where he meets with Pepple outside the caretaker's cabin. They talk for several minutes before the man leaves.

At some point the Cricketer and the Cowboy find themselves at an impasse: they can't decide which poem is better: Ode to a Nightingale or When I have fears that I may cease to be. A fistfight ensues.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.