Copywriter v. Correspondent

That night the Copywriter sleeps the same way he did the night before, with the South Pointing Marmot on his lap, but facing east toward the forest. He wakes in the middle of the night to noise, the sound of branches snapping, of undergrowth crushed by hasty feet. From behind the first row of trees he sees a light, now closer: a lantern, dangling from what seems a pole or staff, but too high to make out the person (obviously some person) that carries it. He watches as it bobs across the edge of the forest for over an hour, back and forth, back and forth - before extinguishing suddenly. He waits, afraid. Hours pass before falls into a light sleep.

The next morning he wakes expecting to see the marmot before him. It isn't. Instead he hears a slap.

A few seconds later he hears another. Both in the direction of the bog. Curious, remembering the lantern from the night before, he stands, stretches, and walks south. There, over the bright green bulrushes that spring up from the north side of the swollen creek, he waits. A few seconds pass before he hears another slap, turns, and - through a low hang of marsh plants - sees a great brown beaver standing on a muddy patch, its flat tail twitching. It bends over and, with quick motion, raises and sends its tail down flat against the water. A great slap.

It's then that he realizes the nature of the place: it's less a naturally formed bog than a flooded lowland, with a small pond held just behind a great dam of fallen trees and branches. It explains the bleached spires of dead pine, their roots submerged in water, met eventually by the distant black hills. Reeds shoot from the spires, and tremendous pads of algae and moss and fleshy marsh vegetation, thick and choking, stretch as byways throughout. Frogs croak unseen; methane bubbles string from the marsh floor; a thin morning mist blankets the water.

The beaver, catching sight of the Copywriter, stops its slapping and dives silently into the mist.

The Copywriter suddenly wishes he'd had the foresight to pack some breakfast.

The Correspondent arrives late. She's dressed for travel, in slacks and a loose rose blouse, with a large purse over her shoulder. Her hair is black, cut fashionably, pulled up in bun. The Copywriter introduces her to the grounds. She asks about what he knows of the place and he tells her, focusing mainly on the marmot, the midnight lamp, the beaver, and the caretaker. He mentions the deaths he's caused in passing. Unspoken rules and all, he says off-handedly.

She takes out a pad and begins writing. What are they? she asks. The rules.

If I told you, says the Copywriter, they'd stop being unspoken.

They can't be necessarily unspoken.

No - necessarily they are, essentially, by definition, uniquely necessary! That fact itself is part of the rule.

How can you talk about them?

You can't. They're just known, he says. To be honest, I'm not really sure which are which.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Copywriter v. Correctional Officer

The rain that falls that night dampens the ripening stench of the corpses on the edge of the ground, left unmoved by the Copywriter. The wind wafts the occasional musty, dank putrescence by the ground near the base, but mostly the smell is of rain and grass and pine. He sits cross-legged, huddled under the black umbrella left leaning against the oak, the South Pointing Marmot on his lap. Falling in and out of sleep, his head droops. One last glance to his left shows a flicker of lamplight dancing dimly through the forest, flickering behind a curtain of trees.

He wakes sitting two feet from a marmot, sitting as he does, locking its impersonate eyes with his, unwavering. The rain stopped at some point during the night, and the haze of early morning clings to the ground, and the oak lets fall great drops in waves as the wind presses overhead. A tremendous stillness settles between the gusts. A woodpecker knocks in the distance, then stops. The Copywriter and the marmot regard each other with sleepy curiosity.

The Copywriter thinks of feeding the animal something. He doesn't have food. Instead, slowly, he reaches down for the South Pointing Marmot. He holds it by the base. With the care and consciousness of movement usually seen only during Japanese business card exchanges, he slowly presents the compass, setting it before his companion. It doesn't flinch during the offering, but watches with interest. As situated, the bronze marmot points south - directly at the true marmot. The true marmot, mirroring the bronze marmot, raises its front paw and touches the paw of its doppelganger. It leans forward and sniffs a bit, then leans back again. The two remain upright, holding hands, for several seconds. Finally, just as the stench of the corpses returns, the true marmot falls on all fours, turns, and shuffles off through the high grass. The South Pointing Marmot continues pointing south.

If you don't do what you signed, says the Correctional Officer, you're in the wrong, and that's that.

She's a terrifyingly brutish woman. Short, muscled, obese; an overflowing mound of flesh and ironed, bleachblond hair.

The two decide to - or the Correctional Officer proclaims that they will and the Copywriter agrees that they might as well - confront the caretaker at his cabin to the north. They walk, and the Correctional Officer bangs her fist on the door. They hear the sound of footsteps. The door unlatches and opens and there stands Pepple, wearing the black clothes left by the Comedian. His face runs with a large scar down his left cheek. A bruise marks his forehead. He looks first at the Correctional Officer, then at the Copywriter.

The Correctional Officer holds up the contract. Just as she takes in a lung full of air to begin the planned berating, Pepple pushes past them, closes the door, picks up his shovel standing under the awning, against the cabin, and walks to the grounds. Caught by surprise, the Correctional Officer waddles behind him, and the Copywriter behind her. It takes only a few seconds for her to launch into the attack she'd prepared, now amended slightly to focus less on criticism for not doing what one should but criticism for not doing what one should promptly and without being told. The harangue drags on for just under an hour, with Pepple never objecting, but only dragging, digging, and burying the three bodies.

If the Copywriter hoped she'd stop after Pepple returned to his cabin, his hopes were dashed. She expresses her outrage and anger even as they stand ready to fire.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Copywriter v. Coroner

Without access to a lab I can't say for sure, hedges the Coroner, but I'm almost 90% sure that these three people were each killed by a fatal gunshot wound.

He stands from where he'd been kneeling over the Coppersmith, gently poking the bloody hole in her blouse with the tip of his ball point pen. The Copywriter, ashamed at having killed such a wholesome looking woman, stands silent. He nods. They both nod. Both regard the bodies and nod. The Coroner wipes his pen off with a paper napkin, crumples it, and throws the napkin on the ground. The Copywriter regards this littering, thinks of saying something, but - checked by guilt of the death he caused - simply nods. Shame, they both say. Real shame.

You think the girl killed the other two? ventures the Copywriter.

I'm no Forensic Pathologist, says the Coroner, rocking back on his heels, but I think that may have been the case. The other possibility, given the rate of decomposition, and smell of that first one - the one in shop clothes - is that one died, and then the other, and then she died. All on different days.

Were you... (the Copywriter fidgets) ...called here by the police?

Oh no, says the Coroner. I'm here for a duel.

The Copywriter lets burst a great sigh of relief: Oh, thank Christ, he says. In that case, I shot the girl.

Really? asks the Coroner.

Well, I had to, he says. Unspoken rules. And the fact that she was aiming at me.

So without access to a lab, I was right: death by fatal gunshot wound.

As fatal as they come.

That correspondence corse really paid off.

The two men spend the rest of the afternoon rummaging around for gloves to haul the corpses (one already swelling in the heat) to the fresh graves by the north fence. They look all about, spend time examining the South Pointing Marmot, debate whether to play a game of chess, until the Coroner finally spots the hole in the oak, and he boosts the Copywriter up and empties the hole of its treasures.

They go through papers, a statue of a white nine-tailed fox, a grocery list, the List of the Dead --

What's written on the back? asks the Copywriter. He looks. It takes a second for him to deduce the series.

Archbishop, Archer, Armorer... Coppersmith, Copywriter, and you're a --

Coroner, nods the Coroner. And I dabble in watercolor, but not too seriously, he adds.

Then where the hell, scans the Copywriter, is that bastard of an Art Director. He said got called for a duel....

The Copywriter looks in vein. He crumples up the list in anger. It was only in envy of the brilliance of the Art Director's unique exit from the firm - the first to excuse himself from the ad world due to a duel - that led the Copywriter to do the same three months later - not expecting that he'd actually be called to a duel two days after quitting.

While the Copywriter fumes, the Coroner carefully reads the Caretakers' Contract. He gets the Copywriter's attention. They both read over the fine print. Every day, the Coroner points out, they're supposed to remove the bodies every day.

Bastard! cries the Copywriter.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Coppersmith v. Copywriter

Pepple falls just before reaching the field of two-foot high corn. The Coppersmith runs. He's down, but conscious. She sees his wounds, the tears in his clothes, the discoloration of his shirt, his pants by soil and blood and sweat. Regardless, she leans down to touch him gently on the shoulder. He breathes with steady draw. She asks him if he needs help. Second pass. He lifts his arms, rights himself, and sits up. He blinks.

She runs to the creek, rips the bottom of her shirt, soaks it in water, and runs back. Ringing the cloth, she carefully cleans his wounds: the scars on his neck, his sinewy arms, his face. She doesn't speak. They're both silent. He watches her as she runs off to wash the cloth in the creek, watches as she walks back and begins again. She's young, in her late twenties, not unattractive.

A bear? she asks finally.

No. Couldn't say.

She wipes his brow.

Eventually he thanks her. He tells her he has to leave, to sleep. She helps him up, and - surprised to find that he's the owner of the cabin - leads him north, to his door.

The Copywriter's a large, physically awkward man. His face is sweaty, his hair's an undone nest, his glasses droop to the tip of his nose. Oh God, he says, this humidity's killing me. It's worse than a bear attack.

The Coppersmith reaches for a pistol.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Cooper v. Coppersmith

At night the Cooper sits sleepless. From the quiet, he hears the sound of gunfire. Four shots in total, two seconds between each shot. They reverberate off the cliff toward the west, echoing between the east and west walls of the great valley. The Cooper waits.

The next morning the Coppersmith walks in from the road. She lets out a cry and rushes to the South Pointing Marmot. It was her work, partially: the bronze panels that lined the square base, beneath the marmot, each of a different creature. When she sees the massive dent in the cuttlefish panel she gasps and touches it softly, as if it was her own wound.

I thought I'd never see this again, she says.

The Cooper remarks on the design, the inventiveness of it.

She waves him off. Oh, she says humbly, these were all copies from older panels. The man that contracted this was specific on what he wanted. I just followed his directions, adding a few things here and there.

Pepple staggers from the forest. His shirt is torn and his torso bloody, his face is scarred, and great scars lacerate his neck and right arm. He's exhausted from blood loss and lack of sleep, holding the Mauser loosely, its stock bloody, midbarrel.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Contractor v. Cooper

The wind blows over the forest and the clouds darken. Soon it drizzles. The caretaker invites the Contractor to dinner. Inside, as the rain patters against roof and sides of the cabin, the two men share a simple meal of lentils and back bacon and black bread. For a long while the two men are silent. Eventually they talk. When the do, they talk about the cabin.

The Contractor reassures Pepple of the care that went into his home. The floorboards were the smoothest of the boards, also chosen for their sturdiness, and braced beneath. The boards that made the walls were thick, layered, and any gaps filled with moss. The roof is watertight. This last assurance is proved by the lack of leaks, even as the rain grows violent, lashing against the east wall.

Pepple commended him for the time and care he put into his work.

It's a dying thing, laments the Contractor. He puts down his spoon and sighs.

My grandfather, he says, was a Stonemason. The last with a shop in the county. He cut stone in such a ways and with such speed of practice so as you could hardly believe. All with a hammer and chisel. Selecting right rocks from the quarry or old ashlars from fallen homes far back in the forest - each depending on the job - and with these chipping, chipping, chipping away quick and right, then fitting them like so, like so - for a job as easy as setting a stone wall or as hard as carving a full panel frieze, with vines and foliage and animals, all following a pattern, one by one, till it meets.

That last job, he continues, was his best but now it's lost. A temple or chapel for a wealthy man. But octagonal, maybe circular, I don't know. And I forget where it was built. Then he died one day and the spot lost with him.

Pepple stands from his seat on the bed and removes the dishes. The Contractor leans back in his chair.

Now, says the Contractor, tapping a cigarette on the back of his pack, people like us almost don't exists. It's not a lack of skill, but a lack of patience. Cheap materials, assemble them quick. Easier. Machined. They complain about boredom, but boredom exists either way. And they complain about unpredictability, but where there's the unpredictable there's the failing and the genius of the human hand.

They both light their cigarettes and listen to the rain.

Pepple insists the Contractor say in the cabin that night. He tells him he knows of a small hunting shack in the forest, and leaves with an umbrella, the Mauser slung over his back. The Contractor, alone, uses a candle to look at the titles of the books on the shelves. He moves then to the desk, opens the desk drawer, and finds a slip of paper and the Assessor's silver pen. He jots down a note, then blows out the candle and turns to bed.

The next day the Cooper arrives. He meets the Contractor under the oak. They know of each other vaguely - their sons both play in the same midget baseball league - and so they talk about their son's progress and batting stances.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Constable v. Contractor

After the death of the Construction Worker - just as he falls, and the Contractor runs to his body, checking for any sign of life - an unexpected thing happens:

A tiny, semi-official man arrives in a tiny, semi-official car. The man steps from the car - leaving it running - and walks briskly to the dueling ground. He wears an impeccably arranged yet slightly grease-stained brown uniform, circular, wire-framed glasses, a close trimmed beard, and a short-brimmed brown cap at an angle atop his head. By the two men and one corpse, he takes the clipboard from under his arm and, in a tiny, semi-official voice, reads a common name. The Contractor looks up. The Courier, with quick bird-like movements, walks to the Contractor, takes a pen from his shirt pocket, clicks it, turns the clipboard around to face the Contractor, and asks him to sign. The Contractor, stunned by his apprentice's death, signs. At which point the Courier takes back the clipboard, takes back the pen, opens a shoulder satchel, and hands the Contractor a telegram.

Sorry for the delay, he says curtly. You weren't at the address given.

How did you know I was here? asks the Contractor, reading the telegram.

Your wife, he says. Then he bows to both men and the one corpse, turns, and leaves.

My wife, the Contractor echos. Absently, he folds the telegram and pockets it. He looks at the lifeless face of his apprentice, then the witless face of the Constable, then to the cabin, where Pepple stands, and has stood, watching with an expression that hints at wonder -- and sympathy.

A great wind washes over the forest, and the mighty trees rustle like thunder.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.