The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  Dawson’s singular gesture had crushed months of mistrust and dislike. The mind drove the body like the boiler drove the belt, the fisherman’s club.

  Double shifts meant fewer days total lost. If each shift meant one day gone, two in a day was smarter. He was scraping his time from the margins; pulling stitches. This was temporary, and it wasn’t the weight of the lumber but the splinters that drove you mad.

  He ground out the cigarette under his boot and produced a piece of venison from his pocket. Dawson was on the catwalk. Charlie Boyerton came out to join him. Boyerton was a smallish man with a stubby neck and a round stomach. His watch chain flashed in the gloom. Jonas had a childish urge to please him, to work hard for him and do a good job. He’d always respected starched little bastards like Boyerton, couldn’t say why. He watched as the two men spoke but couldn’t make out a word of it. Boyerton made a chopping motion with his hand and stomped off. Dawson reached up and with the one remaining finger on his right hand yanked the chain and sounded the whistle again. Jonas got stiffly to his feet and righted the lever to his machine. Steam burst from the release valve with a half-plugged hiss, and the lumber came trundling on the hooks and chain at him.

  The mill was alive, the long house at the harbor’s edge, blackened boards and running with water, always alive, always going. Belts took the dust and shavings, scrap too, fed the fire. No peace. It almost made him miss mining, the solitude at least. A bulb burst and rained hot glass down on the conveyor, the smell of burned wood and sulfur. “Watch the dust,” Jonas called to the boy setting stickers for him. His name was Amos Rills. “Watch for fire.” Amos assessed the ground, nervously wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt. A few minutes later, high above them, a boy dressed in white coveralls climbed out onto the beam to replace the broken bulb; he didn’t appear human, scurrying around up there. His little fingers clawed into the bird shit as he pulled himself along. He didn’t look scared, but he had to be. Jonas couldn’t help but watch him and worry, and the distraction earned him a nice fat sliver in his palm.

  Some time later a man came stumbling into Jonas and knocked him down. Amos Rills picked up the plank he’d dropped with great effort and stacked it while Jonas helped the bloody man to his feet. He’d been cut deeply in the forearm, and the blood pulsed through his fingers as he ran for the door. Jonas caught the next plank and the one after, and Amos went back to his rounds.

  The hermit, Kozmin, appeared and tried to talk to Jonas, but Dawson ran him off. The old man looked worried and yelled something, but Jonas couldn’t hear a word of it, likely it was something to do with his father. Amos brought him a tin cup of water. All the hair was burned from the boy’s hands and arms, and his eyelashes and eyebrows were stunted and spotty. His mouth was rimmed with black grime. The water was hot, and Jonas spit it out.

  Dawson and two other men came by, hauling a broken driveshaft, and twenty minutes later the mill got louder as another saw came to life. Jonas hadn’t noticed that the sound had dropped off. Muleskinners came and hitched their team to Jonas’s full truck and towed it out to the dock.

  The sun was up now, and the dust-coated windows let in enough of the dawn so that half of the electric lights overhead could be shut down. The whistle sounded again, and Jonas dropped onto the partial bunk he’d been stacking and caught his breath. He opened his eyes when the new man arrived, nudged him in the shoulder to make him move.

  Jonas smiled because he was done. He roughed the sawdust from his hair, tasted it mixed with salt when it rained down. He stood and staggered to the post and took his coat down from the hook. He signed out and marked the shift locations in the log, held the pencil in his hand like he was holding a chisel and someone else was bringing down the hammer. The clerk initialed his entry and made it official.

  The gray square of daylight on the east side of the building was his landmark, his north star.

  Dawson called to him and caught him at the door. He had a drunkard’s pitted nose, and when he spoke, he kept his good hand in his pocket and gesticulated with the nub and finger. “A man came to see you. He said your cousin fell in the river. They found him, but he’s in bad shape.”

  The whistle sounded for the last time, and the roar heightened and seemed to blow past them out the door like a hot wind. Dawson ushered him out the door and around the side of the building. The harbor was flat and full of bark and debris, held by its icy edge. The clouds were low, as they often were at dawn; at dusk they rose and sometimes offered a glimpse of the sunset. What did Dawson say? What about Duncan?

  “That’s some mean water right now,” Dawson said, offering his flask. Jonas took it and unscrewed the cap with his clubby, nearly useless fingers and drank, passed it back. Dawson checked over his shoulder and had a nip and then slipped the flask back into his pocket. “There’s another thing, and I hate to do it, but Mr. Boyerton come by himself.”

  “I saw you and him talking.”

  “There’s been some harm done to his family by yours. The same one that fell in the river, your cousin, Boyerton said he hurt his daughter’s arm.”

  Jonas yawned again, tried not to.

  “I’m to run you off. It’s not my decision. Your pay will be here on Friday as usual. Come find me, and I’ll make sure you get it.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  All the trees stood on the hills, frozen white in the gray morning. The scrub brush rising in the clearings was sparse and ratty, and birds skittered about like fleas. Jonas thought of a woman. He’d known her, where’d she go? When did she leave? His mouth went slack, and he couldn’t stop the yawn that came.

  Jonas didn’t think that Duncan would be one to drown. He had a crooked way of avoiding injury, like cats can fly tangled through the air and catch the ground, like a dragonfly catches its mate.

  He passed through the mill gates, and the sawdust ended and the mud began. The smell of the ebb tide was heavy in the air. The water’s edge was all the way out, beyond the channel even, lower than it had been for months. Ships would be thick on the flood, and the shoals would shift. Put your feet before you and walk. Better than having to whip an animal is to have it know its job.

  The drunks around the barrel fire sat bent and rooted to their tree-round seats like idiot fishermen. Jonas lifted a blanket next to a log, and under it was the hermit, mouth open, snoring.

  “He ain’t dead,” one of the men on the stumps muttered. “I just checked.”

  “There was a boy,” Jonas said, “nearly drowned, where’d they take him?”

  “Oh, yer him,” one of the men said, standing up, deciding against it, sitting back down. “Yer his cousin.”

  “Where is he? Did they take him home?”

  “He’s at the doc’s,” a man said to his muddy boots. “At Haslett’s.” He looked up, tilted back his hat, and revealed bloodshot eyes and his eyebrows gone, like a skull with a beard. It took Jonas a moment to figure what was missing. “We went searchin, then Hank was buyin. Fuckin Hank, he kicked us out the union hall for bein too drunk. But he’s the one that did it to us.” Laughter, mostly his own. “He’s the one that caused it, then fuck you into the street cuz we got sloppy. Who’s to blame?”

  Without a word Jonas went back and covered Kozmin and walked away. There was sun on the road before him, but it started to rain anyway, straight and thinly fast. He liked the light in the confused storm and felt uplifted. He held his face up to the cold rain and let the contradictory nature of the divine wash over him. The complexity of a wet and cold sun reassured him. He thought he should pray, but he was too tired, too fed up to bother. Go on and read my mind if you want. I’ll tell you, thanks for that. Thanks for saving him.

  Duncan

  There were no shadows, and only the weakest seep of outside light coming under the door. I could hear the distant sound of voices and kindling being chopped and rattled apart. Rain on the roof, a different roof, not any roof that I knew
, soothing and monotonous, water. There was nothing to be afraid of; I was in a tomb, and my body had gone away. Nothing to fear. I’ve been killed, and my feet have been stolen. My mouth was dry as talc. I no longer require liquids. Bellhouse slit my throat. I touched my neck to feel the wound, and there was nothing except a general soreness, an ache that started at the skin and went to my neck bones and down my back into my arms and legs. So Tartan strangled me. And now I’m dead. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, ready to fall into oblivion, decidedly on to the next life. There was an odor in the room, though, one that I knew, a dying smell. Someone was breathing, and it wasn’t me. I held my breath and heard the breathing. No, I was alone. I was sure of that. All alone. I suddenly remembered that I’d killed Matius. My own blood. My heart raced and raced until it slowed, and I felt my body ease away, drift off. Into the woods.

  When I woke again, the room was full of light. It was a room I recognized. I’d been here before. There was a sheet hung down the middle, a clean white sheet. It was the doctor’s house. The walls were painted yellow, and the floor was polished. There was a pot next to the bed, but it’d been emptied. I must’ve thrown up; I could taste the river in my mouth, mud and moss. Had I been attacked by a bear? I felt myself out for wounds but found nothing more substantial than scratches. My toes were blistered and frostbitten, and I thought I could feel it on my ears too. They felt the same as my toes. But I was intact. I studied the shadows on the hanging sheet, like wet sand, shades shifting, and tried to figure what to do next.

  “Hello.” My voice was a stick dragged over a dry rock. I repeated myself, slightly louder this time. Nobody answered, and I was glad. I wasn’t saying another word. I’d tested what needed testing and now I was done. I was alone and could relax. I knew where I was, and it was daytime, but I was not day awake or night awake. When I closed my eyes, I envisioned myself doing horrible things. Bellhouse and Tartan were there with me. Tartan handed me a bloody knife butt first, Kozmin’s knife. I stuck it in the bear’s side and the two men laughed, but I felt awful for what I’d done. We were in the forest, hiding outside of the timber boss’s shack. I’d been there with my father before. There was no smoke from the chimney, but the boss was in there with the cruiser. Bellhouse stood up, and then Tartan. I tried to free the knife from the bear, but it was frozen; ice was running up the blade and onto the handle, onto my wrist. I couldn’t stand unless I let it go. I released my grip, and when I stood Bellhouse was gone and so was Tartan, the shack too. A husky dog was there, no rope on its neck. Here, boy. Here, pup. It ran, and I went after it.

  Mother was in the bushes, the dog at her side. She waved me over, and we petted the dog. She looked tired. Snow fell directionless and without hurry, melted against the hot skin of my face. I looked back, and she was gone. I followed her tracks and the dog tracks to the mouth of a cave, a place I knew. I stepped into the dark and touched my hand to the dry stone.

  Voices in the room played peanut gallery to my dreams. My old boots will fit him. He’s not worth the wearing of them. They’re worn out already, no worth to be called for. He doesn’t look like the sort to do what he did to Miss Boyerton. His blood is of the sort. I’ll testify to that. Poor skinny boy. Pity the child always, but fear the man.

  Then Matius made an appearance. The cave ended, or was gone. I was outside again, wet forest, wet ground. Blood dripped from my uncle’s right hand, and around his wrist he wore a bracelet of Mother’s hair. We were on the deck of a schooner, being guided into the harbor by the Cudahey tug. Matius went barefoot and bare-chested, with a dingy beard hanging to his flat, starving belly. Something of the skinned animal about him, a cow’s knee joint. The hills were bare of trees, and the log decks at the shore were stacked up higher than the roof of the mill. There were mountains of logs.

  “We’ve finally worked ourselves out of this place,” Matius said. “We’ll soon have the fields of Ohio.”

  “There’s more trees over the hill,” I said. “We’ll find more trees and cut them too.”

  “Will we now?” My uncle swung at me without warning, and I dodged the blow but lost my footing and went over the rail. More water. Not anything new, just more. I didn’t care. Drown me once, shame on you. Drown me twice—I took a deep breath, and it didn’t even catch, not so much as a hiccup. After a few breaths, I no longer sent bubbles rising but instead shot a cold jet of water like a clam, felt it against the backs of my teeth. There was no fear of death. I tromped around in the mud at the bottom of the harbor, and I could see all right. I climbed over a shoal marked by keel and rudder alike and on the other side came upon one of Bellhouse’s graveyards. Men were chained around the chest like Gutowski had been chained, sprouting from the floor of the harbor like giant mushrooms. They were mostly sitting upright, with dead open eyes, but some had tipped over, and their eyes were shut. Silt would soon cover them. The crabs were feeding and shredded clothing; a bootlace and after it a laceless boot drifted by on the easy, ocean-bound current. I uncoiled the chain from a bony, naked corpse and freed it; and it floated to the surface like a kite taking off. I hefted the chain and liked the weight, so I wrapped it like a scarf around my shoulders and it felt good, like my coat had felt good before it tried to drown me. I walked on and saw dozens of salmon as big as my leg and told myself to remember where I’d seen them so I could come back later and catch them. I stood there and looked them in the eye, slid my fingers down their bellies and over their tails. Fish look at you like anything does, like people do. Locations seemed important. Later, climbing over a jumble of sunken logs, I came upon fishermen’s lines in the water, herring threaded onto rusted hooks. I could see the bottom of their boat overhead. I tugged on their lines and stole their bait and watched the boat rock as they farmed the empty water. I laughed soundlessly. I was unkillable, walking on the harbor bottom, exulted.

  Doc Haslett and his new wife were in and out of the room. Behind the sheet there were shadows and there was blood. I could smell it. Nurse and doctor passed like birds from shadow to sun. Someone was moaning, and I told myself to quiet down because it had to be me, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t me at all.

  Suddenly I was awake, blinked at the door, blinked at the wall. The room was quiet. Then there was breathing, shallow, rasping. I was sure of it now: I wasn’t alone. There was someone behind the sheet. It didn’t matter. The sheet was there; it would keep us apart. Let them be over there, and I’ll be over here.

  Through the high window I could see that the rain and snow had stopped and it was daylight. I lugged myself out of the cot and stood and looked down at the strange nightshirt I was wearing and my mysteriously damaged feet. My mother might or might not have died in this house. I tucked the blankets under the pillow. The floor was scrubbed clean, and the grain and knots were risen and lumpy. I pulled back the curtain. Zeb Parker was sitting on a cot, barefooted, dressed in rags, looking back at me with dull eyes. He looked dead, and then he blinked.

  “What’re you doin here?” I asked.

  “I’ve come to kill you.” He lifted his hand, and I saw he had a piece of the broken ax handle resting in his lap.

  “No, yer not.”

  “Someday I will.” The scar on his jaw was as fat and pink as an earthworm.

  “Did it hurt when she did it?” I asked.

  “Did what?”

  “Cut that hook from yer face.”

  “You are like yer father. I’ll put you down like a dog.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Not to me, you didn’t. You never said nothin.”

  “I don’t hate you, Zeb. I was scared, is all.” I turned and pulled the curtain closed behind me, stood there thinking: It isn’t real. He isn’t real. “Did you hear me, Zeb? I said I was scared.” I waited for him to answer, and when he didn’t, I pulled back the curtain and he was gone, hadn’t ever been there at all.

  I opened my eyes when I heard someone come through the door. Tartan dropped my hat on the bed and then slipped off his coat
and hung it on the back of the chair. He sat down and smoothed his mustache with his palm as he stared at me.

  “You did this,” I said to him.

  “I certainly did. Saved yer life.”

  “Likened to kill me. Kozmin saved me.”

  “Feelin well enough to argue then. Good.”

  “Just saw a ghost, or maybe not. Can someone that isn’t dead be a ghost?”

  “I don’t have opinions on spiritual matters.”

  “How do I know if yer real, if I just saw someone who wasn’t?”

  He blew his nose into his hand and wiped it on my bare arm. “How’s that for real?”

  I used the blanket to clean myself up. “What d’you want from me?”

  “Sorry I pitched you in the river, is all. That’s what I came here for.” He stood and put on his coat. “Come by the hall when yer healed. Hank and the boys want to see you.”

  “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  “Get that fat doctor in here, and let’s talk out what happened to my mother.”