Detective v. Dietitian

After downing the Dictator, the Detective sets north again with the clear intention of pistol-whipping a bit more information from Stetson called Pepple. It's at the demarcation between the grounds and the thigh-high corn that the Detective sees it: the Mauser held in Stetson's hands. The Detective spits.

I gotta hunch you wouldn't fire that, shouts the Detective.

Stetson adjusts the makeshift bandage over his broken nose. The Detective walks back to the oak.

Noon comes, and so too comes the Grave Digger. He nearly cries with joy at he nears the Dictator, face hot and pink on the grass of the dueling field, a chest of metals and epaulets shining in the summer sun. The Detective steps from under the oak, watching as the Grave Digger loots the body, first by ripping each metal with a satisfying jerk then testing their worth with a prospector's bite. After each chomp, regardless of the result, he deposits them in his great, oversized trouser pocket.

The Detective coughs. The Grave Digger looks up nervously while at the same time crouching slightly over the corpse, possessive as a wolf over a fresh kill.

Work for the fella in the cabin over there, huh? he asks.

The Grave Digger snorts. He turns back to the body. Supposing I do, he growls.

Pay you well? he asks.

Today I got my worth, the Grave Digger spits.

That right, says the Detective. He laughs. Bet you suppose you'll be able to pawn those metals off. Truth told, all together they're worth oh... a carton of cigarettes, maybe. If you barter well.

The Grave Digger turns around. He screws his eye at the Detective. What do you know about that? he asks.

You work homicide long enough, sighs the Detective, stretching, you meet a Fence or two. You start getting a notion for the price of things. I'll tell ya it's always the same with petty schmucks like this character here: exterior, exterior, exterior. Shiny, flashy, the conspicuous display of wealth. When really it's just - an illusion. You bite down on any gold?

The Grave Digger shrugs.

You didn't. Because these people are cagey. They no dummies. They keep their wealth - their real wealth - hidden. Now in the case of a third-world Dictator jumping from a passing prop plane, I'm guessing that wealth is a form easily transferred. Gold coins. Krugerrands. If I were you I'd check the lining of his jacket.

The Grave Digger, caught up with the logic of the Detective, does what the man says: he unbuttons and flips open the jacket. Inside, on the right, there's a long tear beneath interior pocket. Sitting, baffled, he suddenly hears the heavy jingle of coins. The Grave Digger looks up. The Detective holds a small leather pouch full of gold.

Start talking about how you found this place and we'll split it.

The Grave Digger gives a wry smile.

And if you think you'll wait patient until I go down with a bullet to the chest to collect, adds the Detective, I'm happy to bury it. Before you bury me.

The Grave Digger considers. He looks north to the cabin, hidden at his vantage by the waist-high corn. What do you want to know? he asks quietly.

The Detective tells him to start from the beginning.

Well, starts the Grave Digger, I first seen him in town by the mill. Quiet fella, smelled like death itself, not a clean man. He were buying meal. Later I seen him again by the town with an older lady. Later again I seen him jess watching me from outside the general store. Before I think he might be stalking me like prey, he comes to me and says he's got a proposition and do I need work. I need work, so almost any proposition might do, I says. He tells me about this place. I come out to see it, and well I then saw the legend were true. My days are numbered the minute I seen it, so I stepped in full hearted. Told I'd get a fortune for my daughter if nothing else.

What legends?

There were people here before the town, and then people during it, way back. First the Indians. Then a commune a rich man started. The Indians were bad but stayed to the forest, rarely left - only rare you'd hear of a kidnap. Legends of back-switched trails and a valley. This valley. And, of course, the dueling what goes on.

How does he fit in, the caretaker?

That I don't know. He reads, he bought a radio listener for the radio. Young, quiet, keeps alone.

The Detective purses his lips. He kneels, opens the pouch, and shakes out the Krugerrands. Counts half (seven) and hands these over. The Grave Digger feels the strange weight of the coins in his hand. He pockets them.

Contract says all gold goes to him, the Grave Digger frets.

Give him six, you take one. I won't tell. It's enough to see your daughter well for a month. I'll give you another if I live until tomorrow.

The Grave Digger nods. He takes one coin and tucks it in his boot. He leaves, meeting Pepple to the north.

The next day, when the Dietitian arrives, all coins but one are safely buried beneath a stone to the far west of the third cairn to the west.

Detective v. Dictator

The Detective tucks one of the dueling pistols under his belt at the small of his back. He walks north, to where Pepple sits reading.

What's going on here? he says.

Pepple looks up. Excuse me? he blinks.

In a flash, the Detective leans down, grabs Pepple by the collar, and hoists him roughly to his feet.

Listen you sad excuse for an upstate Quatermain, I'm not in the practice of killing, you understand? I like to have a reason before I shoot a man who seconds before was telling me about a private dam to the south feeding power to this cabin of yours. So talk. Start spilling.

Pepple, caught, tries pulling away. The Detective hits him with a snap punch to the nose. Pepple lets out an involuntary cry.

Spill, shouts the Detective, if you know what's good for you!

What do you want to know? shouts Pepple.

Who are your? What are you doing?

My name's Stetson van Popple.

The Detective lets him go.

I'm caretaker of the grounds.

The Detective pulls the pistol from behind his back. He doesn't aim it at Stetson, but holds it conspicuously by his side, finger on the trigger.

Knew a caretaker once. Went by Jonesy. Used to work at the school my daughter went to. He read, too. Guess what?

Stetson raises a finger to wipe the blood issuing from his nose.

Dime comics. The kind you pick up at the supermarket check-out. Archie and Veronica.

He points the pistol down at the small red cloth-bound book beside Stetson's chair. Give me what you were reading, the Detective commands. Stetson slowly hands him the book. The Detective takes it with his left hand. He takes a step back and opens it to its ancient cover page.

Annals of Tacitus, reads the Detective. He throws the book harshly into Stetson's lap.

Stetson catches the book, barely.

Now why not tell me what you're really doing here?

The Dictator parachutes in from plane overhead.

Demolitionist v. Detective

For the third day in a row, the reaping of the previous duel proves less than customary. Not even a wedding band is found. Instead of offsetting the balance, Pepple sends the Grave Digger off empty handed.

When the Demolitionist arrives looking for food, Pepple - looking slightly gaunt himself - breaks a small piece of black bread and hands it over, along with water. The two men eat in silence.

The Demolitionist asks why Pepple doesn't take his rifle and hunt in the forest.

There's game up here, he says, there must be. I'll help you hunt - if you need help.

Pepple takes up his notepad. Three lines are written. He'd drawn them that morning.

...reverently, they place some of the plants...
...the truth is that it longed to yield...
...I didn't know it had got as far as that...

It rains a hard summer rain that night. It breaks the heat.

The Detective arrives in a cheap suit, mopping his face with a yellowed handkerchief.

Demolitionist v. Designer

The Dermatologist's corpse, too, turns up light. An electronic watch, a few dollars, a slim wedding band. The Grave Digger appeals to Pepple. Again, Pepple takes the band and subsidizes the haul with cash. The Grave Digger walks off silently. Pepple sits, thinking, for several minutes.

The Demolitionist, having not eaten for several days, joins Pepple. Pepple considers the man. He returns from his cabin with black bread and a chipped mug of stale water. The Demolitionist eagerly consumes both. They talk, and Pepple reveals that he expects a windfall shortly. He looks to the forest. The Demolitionist notes his pad: filled with notes, charts, analysis; phrases written and circled, modified and put in a variety of associations, crossed-out and redacted. In the middle he sees a chess board, pieces arranged in bizarre fashion, with two pawns at the center.

The Designer arrives in flowing fabrics. She's an average-looking woman with unique hair.

The Demolitionist asks about her clothes.

Bedouin, Poppy, Bedouin! she cries with arms outstretched, explaining: Historical analysis proves an exemplary means by which to arrive at fashionable variety.

Demolitionist v. Dermatologist

The haul from the Dentist is slim. The Grave Digger checks her pockets, her purse. Apart from a few dollars, a small gold wedding band and simple costume jewelry, nothing of great value is found. He buries the body and speaks with Pepple. Pepple considers.

The weather's oppressively hot. Sweat drips from Pepple's beard like rain from straw.

After some deliberation, he takes the small wedding band from the Grave Digger, reaches in his pocket and - presumably to make up for the meager looting - gives the man several folded bills. Pepple then points to the aerial, then to the forest. He talks with the Grave Digger a bit longer. The Grave Digger leaves.

The Demolitionist watches from the oak.

He thinks of walking over to Pepple and telling him of the pipe, but can't think of any reason why Pepple wouldn't either know of its existence already or care. It's a minor discovery that, for him, sheds no light on anything... apart from whence the light from within the cabin is manifest.

The Dermatologist arrives late.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Demolitionist v. Dentist

After the duel the Demolitionist quietly begins pacing the length of the grounds. At last, along the creek that marks the southern border, just north of where the Astrophysicist drove his motorized wheelchair off the two foot-high bank, he sees a clay pipe half buried beneath pebbles and grit. The pipe's old and worn, with algae clinging to the downstream fringe, waving gently in the current.

Following the direction of the pipe, he notes that it aims to a spot just east of the great mound to the northwest of the grounds - not directly to the well. In the other direction, the pipe leads out past the marshland. He strains to see vines and foliage covering a sloped embankment far, far to the south, perpendicular to the direction of the valley.

When he makes to jump across the river to get a better view, an arrow cuts silently into the soft ground before him. He snaps his head to the direction from where it was shot: the forest, not forty paces away. The trees shake. He pulls the arrow from the ground and examines it: it's fletched from scratch, with crow feathers for stabilizers, and a polished, sharpened scrap metal spike for a tip.

When the Dentist arrives the following morning he takes her to where the pipe runs across the creek. He identifies it as an old insulation pipe, its interior coated with lead. Then he points south to the southern embankment.

And that's a private dam, he says. Concrete covered in creeper.

The Dentist strains to see.

Out of view a beaver hits its tail against the calm water.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.

Demolitionist v. Dental Assistant

Lacking much direction after the duel - and being the type of man in constant need for direction, or an outlet for his thoughts; being an extrovert, in other words - the Demolitionist saunters north to chat with Pepple, who sits in the shade of his shack, reading.

The only thing different about Pepple since the Curator's visit is the addition of a panama hat (previously the Curator's) that sits at a jaunty angle over his agreeably trimmed scalp. That and the number of books - now four - that lie in a neat stack beside his Adirondack chair. The books are hard-bound, aged, and worn. Their titles are difficult to read from the angle of the Demolitionist's view. The top seems clearly a volume on esoteric interpretation, the Tree of Life pressed in gilt on the leather cover.

Pepple interrupts his reading to chat for a few minutes. He reveals the nature of the aerial.

Just for curiosity's sake, asks the Demolitionist, where do you get the power for the radio?

He's right to be curious. No power lines run from the road. The roof's without solar panels. No generator fires.

Pepple dog-ears his book, stands, and leads the Demolitionist to the side of his cabin, from which a black cable runs. The cable's of an old make, easily decades old, from the dawn of the electrical age: a thick layer vulcanized rubber melted into coarse hemp insulates twined copper wire. The Demolitionists tugs the cable lightly. It lifts from the grass, leading in the direction of the nearby well.

It's from down there? he asks Pepple, turning.

Pepple nods and returns to his seat, finished with conversation. The Demolitionist looks back and forth between the cable and the well, then at Pepple. Puzzled, he leaves for the oak.

That evening, as the sky darkens, he sees the flicker of light from Pepple's cabin - then a dim luminescence from the south window. Inside, Pepple tilts his head, listening closely to the signal on the AM band. He scribbles phrases on a pad.

The next day the Dental Assistant arrives. She's a pretty young woman not yet in her thirties. A few seconds of conversation reveals her to be phlegmatic to the extreme. Her actions are marked, her reactions gauged. Her preparations are extensive, clinical. She's the first to question whether the heads of their bullet should be sanitized prior to the duel.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.