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.

Correspondent v. Cowboy

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

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

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.