The Cunning Man

by D. J. Butler

  The front door slamming shut finally woke him. Bill Sorenson stood alone in the door with the Colt revolver in his hand.

  “Eh, you’re awake. Oh ja, your fadder will be here soon. He’s just got some udder work keeping him for a bit, at de big house. You want a beer, boy?”

  “No, thanks.” Michael sat up. He wasn’t sure why he declined the beer. It wasn’t like his pap was around to enforce the rules. It was only beer, home-brewed by Sorenson, so it probably wasn’t even very strong. Or maybe that meant it would be stronger. Michael wasn’t sure.

  Regardless, he passed.

  Within a year, he’d probably move away from the farm, and the world was full of beer. No rush.

  “Water, though,” he said. “Or a Coca-Cola, if you have it.”

  The cold night air sneaked in through the tar-paper walls of the Sorensons’ house, and Michael squeezed to the end of the sofa, as close to the stove as he could get.

  Why had his father given Bill Sorenson his revolver? Michael knew the weapon, and if he hadn’t, those initials scratched into the barrel were a dead giveaway.

  Images of swarms of flies came into Michael’s mind when he shut his eyes. He tried to keep his eyes open.

  Behind those flies, he was pretty sure he’d seen a man. An enormous man, the size of a bear, but a man. And his father had shouted Bible verses at the man. The whole thing was odd. There had to be scientific explanation for the flies. Maybe a cow had collapsed near a hot springs and the carrion had drawn the insects. Maybe there was a thermal vent somewhere in the canyon that kept flies alive through the winter.

  Sorenson brought him water in a large beer-stein, holding a second stein for himself. Michael could smell the sweet, hoppy scent of the beer. Sorenson had changed into a shapeless gray flannel shirt and trousers, and wore the revolver tucked into a length of rope holding up the pants.

  Sorenson threw more coal into the stove, then sat on the other end of the sofa from Michael.

  Michael drank most of his water in one long series of gulps. “Is my pap talking with Ammon Kimball, then?”

  “Ja.” The Dane seemed deliberately nonchalant. “I guess dey had a meeting.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Haven’t you noticed dat de Kimballs are crazy? Mad bastards, all of dem. I stuck with Ammon because he seemed less crazy dan Sam, but now I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you stuck with Ammon because you could do the most good for the men that way,” Michael suggested.

  “No.” Sorenson belched. “I don’t care too much for de men. De men don’t get paid, dey can just hop on de train and go find a job in Salt Lake or Denver. No, I don’t give a damn about dem.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Michael said.

  Sorenson shook his head. “No, it’s de families I care about. It’s de families dat don’t eat when de man don’t work, it’s de families dat get left behind when a man goes to ride de rails. So if Joe’s a good worker and just needs a little help, and he’s got a family, ja, den I’m dere to help him. Every time.”

  “You should go into politics,” Michael.

  “No, politics is full of rotten bastards dat say dey want to help, but dey really just want to take all your money and you go to hell. No, I want to really help de people, and I tell you what, so does your pap.”

  Michael felt pride. His pap had some strange old beliefs, but he really wanted to help the poor. The widows and the fatherless, as Hiram Woolley himself might say.

  Again, something thumped against the wall. Maybe a mule had wandered up and was butting against the house? Or kept falling and standing up again? Probably not. It wasn’t a tree. No trees that close to the building. Then what was it?

  The stove was heating up with the extra coal; Michael stood and walked close to the door, where he could feel a little cold air rushing in around the edges of the doorframe. Should he get his guitar from the truck? He could entertain himself, and maybe Sorenson would like to hear a little Jimmie Rodgers or Charley Patton.

  Sorenson stood to get himself a second glass of beer, and Michael decided he was too tired to play.

  “You have a radio, by any chance?” he asked.

  Sorenson shook his head, filling the stein. “De miners’ families don’t have a radio, do dey? So we don’t have a radio.”

  As he settled in to drink his second glass, Sorenson launched into a monolog. Michael could barely follow a long story about how Sorenson had been hired by Teancum because he knew how to get men to work, especially when the work was hard and the conditions dangerous. Sorenson had done it before, for the D and RGW up at a place called Soldier Summit, before he’d lost two fingers, burned off when a boiler exploded. Michael heard about Bill Sorenson’s growing up on a ranch, and breaking horses, and chasing girls.

  Michael longed for the mercy of flyless sleep. It didn’t come.

  Mrs. Sorenson appeared during the story. She pulled a kitchen chair close to the stove and sat there, working at needlepoint. She was a big woman with a wide face, though her eyes were small and merry and she moved with a lot of energy. The constant motion of her fingers and needle was a bit mesmerizing.

  Fragments of his experiences over the last two days filtered in and out of Michael’s consciousness. Samuel’s camp had been an excursion into bizarre territory, and yet, the truck breaking down and starting again felt weirder. What exactly had his pap done that had restarted the truck? What was the thing that had attacked them? Rettig’s toughs might be the least strange thing Michael had seen since coming to Helper.

  But the swarm of flies? In February, with snow on the ground?

  Grandma Hettie would have had an explanation for all this stuff. She had died when Michael was nine, a year before he lost his mother. If Grandma Hettie wasn’t actually a witch, then she was someone who knew an awful lot about old folk magic, and seemed quite convinced that it worked. She’d tried to explain to Michael that everything had a spirit, and some spirits were ghosts and some were demons and some were angels, and that you had to watch out for the movement of the planets, and a black cat was bad luck, and that with the right stick, you could find buried treasure, if the spirits didn’t take it away first.

  As a small child, he’d thought she was kidding, telling him stories. But he’d realized one day when he’d twisted his ankle and the first thing that Grandma Hettie did was make the sign of the cross over it that Grandma Hettie really believed.

  It was quaint and old-fashioned. Michael could imagine a day when the superstitions of the past would fade away, and scientific theory would be applied to all improve aspects of life. Tell me about a ghost? Prove it, empirically. Any axiom about god, ghost, or devil should be backed up with strong evidence or abandoned. Otherwise, it was all fairy stories, the bogeyman under the barn, and Jesus walking on water alike.

  His pap might believe in silly things about God, but he genuinely wanted to do right. So Michael was proud of him, and happy to be his driver. When he went off to college, he knew he would miss their long drives, their banter, and even the good work they did together. Hiram wasn’t just bellyaching about people being out of work, he was doing something to help.

  Sorenson was in the middle of a story, something about a couple of Comanche stealing his horses, when he was growing up in Oklahoma after immigrating from Denmark, and how other boys made fun of his accent.

  Thump.

  “Do you hear that?” Michael asked.

  Mrs. Sorenson’s whirring fingers and the sound of the needle piercing the cloth on her lap was all they heard.

  “Hear what?” Sorenson’s eyes were red-rimmed and runny.

  “You don’t hear that?”

  Sorenson shrugged and then took up where he left off, saying something about how Quanah Parker respected the courage of a man who asked for his horses back.

  Michael’s large drink of water had run its course through his system, and he now had a more urgent concern than likely-meaningless noises in the night. “If I have
to answer the call of nature, do you have an outhouse?”

  Sorenson gave him a wavering stare, opening one eye. “Call of nature? I don’t understand.”

  “I have to…take a piss,” Michael said.

  The Dane chortled, his eyebrows shaking like jelly in an earthquake. “Ja, dat’s how de miners say it! It’s out back, I’ll come with you.”

  Michael jumped to his feet. “I haven’t needed help in the outhouse for years.”

  “I told your fadder I’d watch you.” The grogginess fell away from Sorenson’s face.

  Michael help up a hand, backing toward the door. “You can watch, but watch from far away. Like, maybe from right here.”

  He slipped out the door, shutting it before Sorenson could follow him.

  Outside, the wind blew strong. Passing around the house, Michael heard another thump. He took in a great big breath. After being inside the closed, hot room, the cold air felt good on his skin and in his lungs. The outhouse was about twenty feet away in an empty space like a lane between homes. Windows glowed with a muted light from a few of the other houses. The air was thick with the cold and the settling smoke of coal fires.

  He went to the corner of the house. He heard something else now, a scratching sound followed by the thump.

  Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Thump.

  What the hell? He wished he had his father’s revolver.

  A shiver ran up his spine and lodged in the base of his skull as an uneasy tingling feeling. He imagined Samuel, smoking marijuana and swinging a dead cat by the tail. Maybe he’d come to pin something more human to his horrid easels. Or what if Rettig’s men were back?

  Or what if there were really ghosts, come up from the mine?

  All just stories. He’d soon see the empirical evidence. That was the only scientific thing to do.

  Michael peered around the corner of the Sorenson house.

  Lying on the dirt was a dog, a big, shaggy beast. It had three legs, and when it scratched itself, it fell off balance and its back foot struck the Sorenson’s house. The mutt would get upright, then scratch itself until it fell over and hit the wall again.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch, fall, then thump.

  “Michael?” he heard Bill Sorenson calling from behind him.

  Michael stepped forward, getting away from Sorenson. His movement surprised the animal. It leapt to its three feet and growled, showing teeth, hackles up, and tail straight back.

  Michael wasn’t a stranger to dogs. He crouched down and pretended to pick up a stone. He stood and cranked his arm back as if ready to throw. The dog went loping away toward the mud street in front of the house in a stutter step, two back legs working and the one front leg hopping along.

  Michael dropped his arm. Just a dog.

  Something struck the back of his neck; something small and moving fast, and the pain was fierce.

  Michael slapped his neck, trapping something. A wasp? Buzzing filled his ears. Another sting in the palm of his hand, and more stings on the neck. He spun. Insects swarmed over him, drowning out the light, rushing down his shirt and even into his pants, biting him everywhere they found exposed skin.

  He yelled and threw himself against the wall, trying to smash the swarm with his body.

  “Michael?” Sorenson’s voice sounded remote.

  Something emerged from the shadows. For a mad moment, Michael thought it was the dog. This dark thing came forward, and he’d seen it before. It was broad-shouldered, but had the tapering waist of a man, rather than the bulk of a bear. Its skin was the color of mottled ash, and there was something wrong with its face.

  Mouths. It had three mouths.

  Michael backed away, but his feet got twisted under him.

  He crashed forward onto his belly. The man—it had to be a man, what else could it be?—sank a knee into his back. Michael felt his hair pulled back and then his face was smashed into the ground…over…over…over. He was surprised he didn’t hurt, just experienced a dull feeling of his head being pummeled into the dirt. The stinging hurt more, and the awful feeling of the insects inside his clothes, scuttling around on his skin to find fresh flesh to eat.

  Michael vomited, then gasped in coal smoke. A tingling started in his right foot and then his whole leg seemed to be on fire. His face smashed into his own vomit. He heard a pop above him, saw a flash of light, maybe?

  Or were those stars?

  His foot hurt. It was like someone had stuck a hot coal in the heel of this boot. But he was already so dizzy, and hurt, and scared. The world went black.

  * * *

  Bang!

  Michael woke up in surprise and in pain. Where was he?

  Bang! Bang!

  Gunshots. From inside the Sorenson house.

  A pause. Scuffling inside the house. A final shot.

  Doors of other houses flew open.

  Michael staggered to his feet. He wiped the half-dried sick off his face and brushed away the dirt. His skin burned.

  He went to the window. Inside, Mrs. Sorenson lay on the floor in a widening pool of blood, her needlepoint clenched in a dead fist. The left side of her head was missing. On top of her lay her husband, part of his scalp hanging off his head. Most of the scalp, however, was gone, exposing white bone, and his flannel shirt was soaked in blood.

  On the floor beside them lay Pap’s revolver.

  Yelling, and the pounding of feet.

  Michael’s head throbbed.

  The thing that had attacked Michael—no, the man, it had to be a man, his eyes had played tricks on him—must have killed the Sorensons. But instead, it might look like Bill Sorenson had killed his wife.

  Or worse…like Hiram Woolley, whose revolver lay on the floor, had killed them both.

  Or Michael had.

  Men stomped by, not noticing Michael in the shadows. They went busting into the house, hollering. At first, the shouting was in languages Michael didn’t know, but it gradually shifted into English.

  “God in heaven, that’s Bill Sorenson! Shot his wife! Shot himself?”

  “I don’t believe it. Look at the scalp. Who takes scalps?”

  “That truck, it’s the Mormon. And he have an Indian with him, don’t he?”

  “That gun, it have something on it, scratched on the barrel.”

  “An H and a W. Hiram Woolley. Ja, das stimmt, that gun is the farmer’s.”

  “Yeah, but who is Y.Y.?”

  “The other fellow must be Y.Y.! The dark guy who was with him!”

  “Where is he? Where is that Indian? I bet they did it. I bet they working for Samuel and the Greeks! Make us believe it was suicide…but no, not Bill. Bill never!”

  “Them strangers were for Ammon and you Germans!”

  “No, the Indians, that Indian, they hate us white-skins. I seen the movies!”

  Michael felt every slam of his heart in his aching head. He couldn’t breathe.

  A hand touched his shoulder and he started—but it was the Greek girl, Medea. She crouched beside him, her homemade spear in her hands. Maybe it was the way the light from the Sorensons’ cast shadows across her face, but as he looked at her, Michael thought she looked like she might be his kid sister.

  She jerked her head, indicating an open alley beyond the outhouse. Michael climbed to his feet and ran.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Something was wrong in the camp. There was too much noise for the middle of the night, and it seemed to be centered around the Sorensons’ house. Hiram made his way cautiously through the shadows of the tarpaper shacks, cold sweat chilling his face. He sprinted up the slope and took a back way that threaded the narrow lanes between homes. He had to duck laundry lines, laundry buckets, and washboards, along with shovels, picks, axes, and other tools.

  Hiram crept up through an alley on the other side of Sorenson’s place. Miners had pulled their cars around to shine their lights on the big Dane’s house, lighting the bare lanes on all sides. Two Ford Model Ts very nearly boxed in the Double-A. Hiram sn
eaked closer, staying in the darkness. He caught snatches of conversation in broken English.

  Police were on their way. The Mormon’s revolver. Sorenson shot his wife and then shot himself. No, that farmer shot them both. Ghosts from the mine might have driven them all crazy. Now the Dane believed, God rest his soul. No, it was the Mormon’s Injun friend. Killed the Danes, took their money, and left. No sign of the Indian, but they found tracks leading away. Wasn’t the Injun, it was the Mormon. You knew how they are. Probably wanted Sorenson’s wife, and then shot them when they wouldn’t go along.

  Hiram had to rest for a minute while relief opened his lungs again. His son was alive.

  He and Michael might both be in trouble with the law, and poor Bill Sorenson. Poor Eva. Bill had promised he’d protect Michael, and had died doing so. Hiram felt gratitude and sorrow, and then apprehension. Without the foreman, the strife in the camp would surely get worse.

  Had one of the miners killed the Dane? Had Rettig ordered it done? Had the demon in the mine followed Sorenson home? That might make his death Hiram’s fault, and Hiram found his eyes filling with silent tears.

  Could Hiram show his face in Kimball, suspected by the miners, hunted by the police? And where was Michael now? Alone in the freezing wilderness and on foot, since the Double-A sat empty in front of Sorenson’s house. Surely, he must be heading for Helper.

  If Hiram could get to the truck and get away, he might be able to find Michael on the road. He’d have to hurry, before the police arrived—he didn’t want a high-speed chase through the canyons.

  The Model Ts might try to follow him.

  But Hiram had learned a car-disabling charm from Gus Dollar.

  The miners were clustered around the doorway, chattering breathlessly. Some of their women stood among them, arguing and waving fists, while others pulled children away from the Sorenson’s house, stuffing them back into their own homes.

  Hiram crept up to the back of one of the Model Ts and took a piece of chalk from his pocket. He scratched three words across the back bumper: Nema, Nema, Nema. Was this blasphemy? But he was only trying to escape, to rescue his son. And he didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer backward, so he’d say it forward and hope the Lord Divine would give life to his charm.