Diplomat v. Disc Jockey

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

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

The Diplomat beats him three times out of five.

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

This is well-observed.

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

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

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

From where? asks the Diplomat, genuinely interested.

From the radio, answers Stetson.

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

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

Dietitian v. Diplomat

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

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

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