The Trials of Solomon Parker

by Eric Scott Fischl

  He leans back against the rock, pulling his old blanket tighter around him. The wind is bitter, his breath steaming and puffing in the fire’s dim light. Marked Face wishes he had some tobacco, something better than cold air to smoke. But he does not, and he long ago learned to live with disappointment. He is a patient man.

  Even though the hour is late, the moon high, the hill on the horizon to the east of him glows with electric lights. It never stops, that place, rattling loud, steaming the air with foul smoke and sickening the earth. All day and all night the whites burrow and scrape and dig under that hill, searching for whatever it is they search for. They say it is metal they dig but Marked Face knows that really it is only greed, that those people are simply trying to fill the aching hunger in their bellies. More, more, always more. He has seen those people for a long time, watched them. He understands them, in a way, though he wishes he did not. He knows that what they find there under that hill will not stop the gnawing in their guts.

  The boy is there, somewhere.

  Marked Face does not like to get too close to that place but, soon enough, he will have to. For now, where he camps tonight is plenty near. He has camped here many times over the years; it is a good place to stop and sit while traveling. Not the best, of course but, so near to the city, good places for a man to stay have become few. Even as far away as he is now, he can smell the stink of that town.

  The fire heats up and Marked Face cooks his rabbit, listening to the flesh sizzle until his hunger becomes too great and he takes it from the spit, still half-raw. The meat is stringy and has an odd, unpleasant flavor, perhaps because of this sick land so near the city, all the spoiled things the animal had to eat during its short life. Marked Face himself has eaten much worse over the years, though, in times of famine, of which there were plenty. It’s hard for him, sometimes, to even recall the better times, the taste of other flesh. Red and glistening, rich with fat, giving his body its power with every morsel. Perhaps that is the way of old men, though; the before times were always better, eh. While he knows not to call himself wise, he has learned a thing or two about himself over all these years.

  He picks the rabbit to its bones, sucking every bit of meat, and then hurls the leavings away toward the head and guts. Warm food in his belly, Marked Face feels a little better now, still cold but better. All day he has felt low, off. It is because he is so close to what he must do; that is no mystery. The ache in his gut is no longer only hunger, but fear.

  Pah, he tells himself, this is not me. He knows who he is. This is only a small feeling, no more than the icy, nervous, twinge in the balls before jumping off a high rock into cold water. It is normal, after all. Starting a thing is sometimes more difficult than finishing it.

  He closes his eyes and sings, trying to calm himself. The Above Ones watch him as they watch all of the world. Let them see him sing, let them know that Marked Face listens and has no fear. He is their instrument. The boy will learn, soon enough, he will learn to open his eyes and see the world as it truly is. He will see and he will choose his path and the world will go the way it goes, ever pitiless. As in the old tales, the Above Ones have spoken.

  The boy, and the old man who moves him, are on that burning hill, somewhere. Soon, he, Marked Face, will come to them, pouring dreams into their ears. He will come bringing stories and lies. He will come bringing chaos. He will come bringing fear.

  He is the twining root that cracks the rock.

  He is the one who pushes the stone that starts the slide.

  He is the instrument of the Above Ones.

  3.

  Billy Morgan comes back from wherever his mind has wandered off to and takes a sip of his beer. Even in the raucous din of the Stope, it’s easy to drift one’s thoughts away when Michael Conroy is chattering – which, to be fair, is most of the time.

  “I don’t know why we gotta come all the way down here, every night,” Michael is saying, now, pausing to wipe beer foam off his lips. “If there’s one thing this damn town don’t lack, it’s places to get a fuckin drink. There’s a hundred thousand people in this town, and places to drink for every last one of them, but me and Nancy and Flynn still gotta walk back up to the Gulch after this to get home. Plenty of places to drink in Dublin Gulch, is all I’m saying.”

  “Drank in the Gulch last week,” Young Dan mutters.

  “Surrounded by all you fuckin Micks,” Old Dan adds.

  Billy watches the boys over the lip of his glass, the beer inside he’s nursing just enough to slide some of the grit from his throat, the whiskey side of his Sean O’Farrell untouched in front of him. Billy is a rarity, not much of a drinker, usually. He rarely wants more than just the beer.

  “Oh all you fuckin Micks, that’s right, Dan, all us fuckin Micks. Leastwise we know who we are, hey? The fuck are you, boy-o? Some kind of Russian, maybe? Fuckin Croat? I don’t even know how to say your fuckin name so don’t you be talking talk at us sons of Saint Fuckin Pat. Right, gents?” Michael looks over at Nancy and Flynn, who are focusing on their drinks, trying to ignore their countryman. Without missing a beat, he resumes. “The fuck is your name, anyway? Hey? How d’you say that, again? Wanker-vich, is it?”

  “Watch yourself, Mike,” Old Dan, Darko Jankovic to his mother, says, raising a finger.

  “Oh and what is it I’m watching now? I’m not the ill-mannered sod who don’t want to drink in a better class of establishment, closer to where the civilized fuckin folk live, instead of this Christ-forsaken shack. Full of questionable characters from the darker corners of Europe, like whatever little benighted scrap of a country your people are from.” He waves an arm, vaguely, in what he figures to be a somewhat easterly direction.

  “Would you just shut it, Michael,” Flynn says, looking up after draining his glass. “Sweet merciful Jesus, every fuckin night with you. You’ve must have got the fuckin tongue of Hercules on you, the way it never stops moving. My own hurts just listening to you, not to mention my poor fuckin ears.”

  Michael assumes an expression of affront. “Well, excuse me, Johnathan, excuse me for standing up for our blessed homeland,” he says, airily waving an arm again. “The art of intelligent conversation is a gift, which flows deep in the blood of the sons of Erin and I, lad, I – unlike you – am a natural racketeer. You and Nancy both should be ashamed to call yourself Irishmen, you disgraceful fuckin mutes.”

  “You’re a natural fuckin eejit, Mike,” Flynn says. He gets up, looks around inquisitively at the table. “My round, boys, if you can get this fool to shut his hole for five minutes.” All hands but Billy’s go up, including Michael’s own.

  “Raconteur, son,” Sol says, as Flynn walks off. His head leant back against the wall, eyes mostly closed. “Word’s raconteur.”

  “Jesus, Sol, don’t get him started again,” Eamonn Mallon, Big Nancy to the boys, mutters.

  Billy smiles to himself. Every night after shift it’s more or less the same: weary, good-natured carping and bitching at one another, pouring a good chunk of their day’s wages down their dry throats – save Billy himself – until they get so tired that it’s a struggle to drag themselves back to their respective rooms for a little sleep before another twelve hours down the mine. Sometimes, once or twice a week, the boys will get to feeling their oats and will drain that paycheck a little more, one round at a time, maybe find a working girl, maybe blow off a little steam with a fight behind one of their usual haunts. Muckers against the timber boys, maybe, or some drillers who look to get shirty. Maybe Penn crews against those of the Orphan Girl, the Speculator, the Neversweat, for no reason other than pride of one mine against another.

  Billy takes another sip of his beer, looking around the crowded little tavern. The Stope is like most of the other places they go after shift: dim, loud, smoky, with a sawdust floor, mediocre beer and indifferent whiskey, but full of men like themselves, the rank and file from one mine or another, brothers in Labor and proud of it. Some crew foremen, like Sol, maybe a few of the better
sort of level bosses. Not for them the like of the Atlantic, with its fancy, gleaming bar a block long, fifteen bartenders behind it for each shift, nor the saloons where the engineers drink, or the smeltermen, or even the ethnic-only miners’ enclaves in one part of town or another. Here at the Stope, Croats rub shoulders with Cousin Jacks, Swedes with Serbians, Slovenes with Syrians, and everything in between. Antti, the proprietor, is himself some kind of Finn who’d leaked out of Finntown to parts slightly eastward; he maintains a strict policy of all are welcome, as long as you keep drinking and take the fights outside, thank you very much, gentlemen.

  Billy looks over at Sol, who seems to be asleep, like Owen, who has yet to master the knack of a drink or two after a full shift’s hard work without immediately passing out. As Billy watches, Sol opens his eyes, blinking for a moment back at him.

  “What?”

  “You all right?”

  “Oh, he speaks.”

  Billy isn’t much of a conversationalist, as a general rule. A closed mouth gathers no flies, his father had told him. “You all right?” he repeats.

  “Tired, is all, mother. Just goddamn tired.”

  Tonight, most nights lately, Sol looks his years, and then some. Billy wonders how long the old bastard is going to be able to keep up with the work, if he’ll have to take Quinn up on a station-tender job, sooner or later, or find something else entirely. Plus there are the other difficulties Billy knows that Sol’s brought on himself, which weigh on the old man, even though he tries to hide it. Sol’s a bad liar, though, and the kind of trouble he’s in right now isn’t the kind of trouble you can lie your way out of anyway.

  “Maybe let’s go, then,” he says now, draining the warm dregs of his beer.

  “Nah, one more drink, Bill,” Sol replies, closing his eyes again. “Just one more drink.”

  Sol isn’t tired now, that’s plain enough to Billy, later. He, himself, wants to do nothing but sleep. He aches and his eyes feel heavy and gritty. There’s a headache nestling at the back of his skull and his jaw is sore from yawning. But Sol is on a tear, again.

  A game of dice, of course, that’s all it takes to perk Sol up. Dice or cards or dominoes or anything else, and Sol Parker is a new man. Alert. Awake. A gleam in the eyes. Most everyone has something that makes them stupid. For some it’s booze or women or dope. Religion, social movements for others. You name it. It’s not always clear just where the stupidity lies, for some people, what it is that has hold of them, but it’s obvious for Sol. He likes his drinking and girls and the rest of it but, seeing him sat there wagering money he doesn’t have, shiny eyed and wet-lipped, hollering out numbers and slapping the table, it’s no mystery where his deeply stupid-making enthusiasms are.

  That goddamn Michael. There are going to be some fucking words about this tomorrow, that’s for certain. Maybe more than words. The boys know by now, have been told in no uncertain terms by Billy, with Nancy’s bulk backing him, to keep the fucking dice away from Sol. No dice, no cards, no dominoes. Hell, no bingo. Not even rock, paper, fucking scissors. None of it. Sol looked out for all of them, down the mine, least they could do was try to look out for him up top. Keep him away from that blind spot he has, that little bit of stupid hunkered down in his belly. It wasn’t shameful to have a weakness; what’s shameful is when your friends won’t help you fight it.

  They’d been damn near finished with their drinks and ready to head out when that idiot Michael brought out the dice, looking for a game. There wasn’t any malice in it, not really; Michael’s just a fucking moron. The words weren’t half out of Michael’s mouth when he realized his mistake, but still that was enough time to wake Sol up, lean him forward, one hand reaching out automatically for the dice, the other digging into his pocket for a small, grubby wad of bills. Eyes open, smile creeping across his face. Michael afraid to catch Billy’s look, and for good reason. It’s too late now, though; once Sol is going it’s hard to stop him. Best they can do is try to cut the game as short as they can, before things get out of control. Keep others away from the table, prevent the game from growing, as it tended to do when Sol was around. Everyone loves to gamble with Sol Parker. He’s the lame elk the wolves cull.

  Flynn is frowning, the Dans look worried. Billy can feel his own teeth grinding. He reaches over and takes Michael’s whiskey. Knocks it back, hissing around the burn.

  There are definitely going to be fucking words about this tomorrow, Michael. Maybe a foot up the ass. Maybe something more stern. Goddamn fucking idiot.

  It’s not just stupid and reckless, Sol tossing dice and hollering, spending money he doesn’t have. It’s dangerous, is what it is. Plain and simple. Word of this gets back to Sean Harrity, and Sol is in more trouble than he already is, if that’s even possible. The money Sol doesn’t have, the simple idea of it, belongs to Sean. Sol belongs to Sean, until his debts are paid. Spending Sean’s money at a dice game – and Sol will lose, rest assured; he’s that sorry type of compulsive gambler who can’t stop playing and who is lousy at games of chance, hence his popularity – is disrespectful. Sean Harrity is big on respect.

  Goddamn you, Michael.

  It’s getting on for midnight, fortunately no later, by the time they manage to get out of the Stope, parting ways with the boys: Michael, Nancy, and Flynn off north to the Gulch, the Dans and Owen to their boardinghouse farther east, Billy and Sol heading southwest, towards the shitty shack they share in the rats’ nest that is the Cabbage Patch.

  The town of Butte smells like the fires of Hell itself, most times, a dank, sharp, sulfurous reek from the smelters, which settles over the hill in a low fog. The Company will tell you that the eggy, stinking cloud is beneficial, that sulfur itself is an element vital for health, which will make your bones strong and your teeth hard. The people of Butte don’t suffer flu or colds or lassitude, they say, the very air of our town is fortifying. Never mind the hollow-eyed, consumptive miners hacking their lungs out shift after shift, the families missing fathers and brothers and uncles; never mind the stunted and dead vegetation for miles around Butte. That smell: that’s the smell of prosperity. To Billy, Butte brings to mind nothing more than a rotting carcass, the hill burrowed out underneath, hollowed like a dead thing swarmed with carrion beetles, the stink of decay rising up.

  But, if Butte smells like Hell, the Cabbage Patch is a level yet lower, the close streets reeking of festering garbage, overfull privies, dead animals. Even in the freezing temperature tonight, their boots squelch unpleasantly through muck best left unexamined. Ramshackle boarding houses press up haphazardly against cabins and gambling houses and the type of saloon that makes the Stope look like a gentleman’s paradise; on the streets, drunks and thieves and the more used-up sort of whore rub elbows with poor – frugal, Billy likes to think – workingmen like him and Sol, packed in more often than not with their raggedy families, too many to a room.

  Why do you live in that shithole? the boys ask them. Sol blusters about saving money and Hell boys, it’s just a place to sleep and I’m hardly ever there. Why spend the money when sleeping is just sleeping. But the boys know that the truth is more complicated.

  Cabin is a flattering word for the shack in which they live. It has a decided lean in at least two separate directions and is largely propped up by the building it slumps against on the downhill side. The place isn’t much bigger than the outhouse out back and, to Billy’s nose, smells about as bad, though he tries to keep the cabin as clean as he can. Years of neglect and filth and a residue of hopelessness seem to cling to every surface, though, which he figures will only come out when the shack finally burns to the ground. The entirety of the inside is taken up with their two cots, between which sit a low table; a couple of rickety and spavined wooden chairs are pushed up against the walls. A fly-specked bulb hangs naked from the center of the room, although Billy ignores it and lights a kerosene lantern, preferring the warm quality of its glow to the harsh electric light.

  Sol sinks onto his cot with a groan, slump
s over to wrestle his boots off. “Another goddamn day, huh?”

  “Another day.” Every night this is their closing ritual, as if each day is a thing they’ve conquered, a victory to be remarked on before tackling the next in a few short hours. After getting out of his own boots and skinning down to his longjohns, Billy reaches over from his cot and turns off the lantern. He can hear Sol already wheezing in what sounds like sleep, breath whistling in and out of his nostrils.

  Tired as he is, Billy can’t drop off. He envies Sol his ability to be asleep as soon as his eyes close, damn near anywhere. Billy’s never had the knack of slipping away like that; even as a kid he’d be up long after everyone else was snoring, his mind on edge, churning away on thoughts he couldn’t cut loose for one reason or another. Maybe it came from being woken up so often by his dad or his uncle on another one of their tears, trying to get out of their way or calm them down enough to back off from one another. Later, at the government school, it made sense to not sleep too soundly lest you wake up with a pillow pressed over your head as the bigger boys, or sometimes the night wardens, tried to get their cock up your ass.

  It’s been a long time since Billy’s thought of the government school, where they tried to scrape the Indian out of him, turn him into a brown-skinned white man. To a large degree, it worked: Billy has only a rough, choppy remnant of his first tongue, what they didn’t slap out of his head to make room for English. He dresses like a white man, works like a white man, thinks like a white man in most ways. When he reflects on it, rare as that is, it saddens him some, but he knows that’s just the way things are. Billy doesn’t see the sense in chewing on it: the old ways are gone. That’s why his uncle is so bitter, maybe that’s why his father is the way he is, too.