The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  “They say keep your enemies close,” her brother had yelled at her locked door. “So you keep them in your bed. How prudent of you. What sagacity.”

  When the sheriff, Mr. Chacartegui, finally arrived, he’d informed her that her father was dead, that he’d been shot down in the street, and she first thought that, no, Duncan wouldn’t do something like that, even though he’d told her. She’d heard his confession and still didn’t believe it. Then Oliver had stumbled in the front door, he hadn’t been in his room at all, and told Chacartegui everything, about her arm and what her father had said. He even went as far as to retell the story of how so long ago Duncan had cost him his eye. She still denied that he’d bruised her arm. Denied that he’d been to see her, but she suspected that the small-eyed sheriff didn’t believe a word she said. He’d been in her father’s study before. They’d been associates, if not friends, and the lawman left the house with a purpose, a promise of a thousand-dollar reward from Oliver.

  “I’ll see Duncan Ellstrom hang for this if it’s the last thing I do,” the sheriff said. And when he was gone, Oliver threw off his coat and filled two of the never-used crystal glasses with her father’s scotch. He bowed and passed her a glass and then raised his own.

  “By week’s end he’ll have him swinging from the main beam of the mill.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m lying?”

  “No, it’s that you simply brim with hatred. I don’t need any more hatred from you or anyone. We’re family, and for me, you and Mother are all that I have.”

  He smiled. “What did Father used to say? Stand it or sink beneath it. I don’t care which. Our father who art in heaven.” He laughed.

  She didn’t remember her father ever saying that, but it sounded like him. “Idolatry has a despicable flavor, particularly when it’s ironic.”

  “Who’s being ironic? I worship at the altar.”

  “We’re all alone here until Mother returns. I need you. We need each other.”

  “To what comes.”

  She wasn’t toasting. She wasn’t drinking.

  “He’d drink to my death as he’d drink to yours.”

  “I won’t.”

  “He drank to Mother packing up and heading out, before and with his swollen red face after.” Oliver puffed up his cheeks and shook his head, a great exhale, laughing. “He drank to keep his crawly little demons in their cages.”

  “Why can’t you be at least his equal, then? Why can’t you measure up to a man you so obviously despised?”

  He waved off her questions. “He drank to keep the logs pouring into his mill. He drank to keep the saws turning. He drank to keep you away from the likes of Duncan Ellstrom.”

  “Stop it.”

  “If not for our father, at least drink to his demons.”

  She set down the glass and stood. “He’d be proud, if he walked in right now.”

  “He’s not coming back, and I, for one, am glad.” Oliver swallowed what was in his glass and then picked up Teresa’s and finished hers. He flung both glasses with a girlish flick across the room, where they smashed, one after the other, against the hearth. He collapsed in the leather desk chair and burped, put his feet up on the desk. “He would be proud, wouldn’t he?”

  There was swirling mist streaming from the clouds, tearing away like spun sugar, but it wasn’t raining, and didn’t seem that it would. A smooth and rolling piece of land—care had been taken to clear the graveyard, the brush and tree roots, and the ground was regularly raked smooth by cripples and old women from the church. Stone paths meandered between the graves, not unlike the mist on the hills, snaking down to the coast to be swallowed by the sea.

  The mill hadn’t been shut down for the service, and there would be no wake, both terms specified by her father’s last will and testament. The workingman portion of the crowd, perhaps fifty men, was rangy and impatient before they passed through the gate, but they settled down as they came closer. All of the Boyertons’ neighbors showed up, even the Williamses and the Groves. The newspaperman, Smith, came to serve the public record. Hank Bellhouse and Tartan stood outside the fence, talking quietly to one another, their hats in their hands. Bellhouse was feeding a stray cat with scraps from his coat pocket. Teresa couldn’t help but stare, and he caught her eye and smiled, an unnervingly kind and sincere gesture. She went red in the face and began to cry. No reason to do it now, she’d held it this long, why not longer?

  Reverend Macklin finally stepped forward and opened his Bible. He began with his usual preamble, not unlike his wedding service, which everyone had also heard before: We are gathered here today. If they’d thought to bring chairs, she could sit, or if her brother wasn’t such a monster, he would hold her up. Her feet were sinking into the soft earth.

  “He was a man with vision, a man who brought to the Harbor what he’d dreamed in his mind.”

  Her brother chuckled a little and then coughed to cover it up.

  “He brought prosperity to himself and so many others.”

  “He brought death on himself and so many others,” Oliver whispered.

  Teresa glanced at her brother and he was licking his lips like he was afflicted. The neighbors were watching him. Couldn’t they hurry this up? Her father didn’t want the time wasted. Just get me in the ground. Had he said that, or was she thinking of herself, for herself?

  “He was a proud man, but not prideful.”

  Miss Dalgleish was suddenly at her side. She slipped an arm beneath Teresa’s and held her up. Macklin went on and told the story of Charlie Boyerton arriving in the Harbor like it was the story of a saint or a king, a knight on crusade.

  “Stay calm,” Miss Dalgleish whispered in Teresa’s ear. “It’s almost done.” Then it was over, actually over, and they lowered her father into the ground. Oliver threw in the first handful of dirt. Teresa took off her glove and threw the next one. The crowd filed past and offered condolences. But he wasn’t a monster, Teresa thought. She and Miss Dalgleish were the last ones there, save the undertaker and his two employees. Her brother had gone with the first wave.

  “Not a soul said a nice word about him save for the reverend,” Teresa said.

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is. They just said what he’d done, what he’d built.”

  “Even so, that doesn’t settle anything. We’ll be judged by the Lord, and by that measure your father was a decent man.”

  “I fear the Lord might judge him even more harshly than his enemies.”

  “I need you to listen to me, dear. What you’ll come to face over the next days and weeks, months and years even, will not be easy for you, and I need you to forget, please, most of all, forget about what can only be called public opinion, but which is in fact evil jealousy and scheming by lesser men. Say what they want about your father, he was better than every one of those dullard sons of bitches.”

  Teresa had never heard the old woman swear. “I don’t know what Oliver will do. I don’t know if he’ll keep the house.”

  “Don’t worry about that either, not now.”

  The undertaker motioned for his men to follow him, and they went down the hill and out the gate.

  “Oliver won’t change anything he doesn’t have to,” Miss Dalgleish said. “He’ll simply float along until someone forces his hand. If the union decides to push—and this will be the time for that—your brother will have to decide if he wants a fight or if he wants to sell. I think you know which he’ll choose.”

  “My mother might have an opinion on that.”

  “Indeed, but it’ll be the same as your brother’s, just more firmly put.”

  Teresa took a step toward the open grave. She and Miss Dalgleish were alone in the graveyard now. The wind was picking up, and their dresses were pushed against their legs. “Are they going to bury him before it rains? Should we get them to come back? It’s going to rain at any moment.”

  “They know how to do their jobs, trust me.”

  Teresa
asked Miss Dalgleish if it would make her a bad person if she left the Harbor and never came back.

  “Of course not. I think you should go as soon as you can. They’ll hunt Mr. Ellstrom down, and you don’t need to go through that. Your mother will be here soon. She won’t want to stay long, either. Of that I’m sure.”

  “What about you? You’ll be alone with Oliver in the house.”

  “Come on now. You’re right about the weather; it’s changing for the worse. Say your good-byes.”

  “I already have.”

  “Then let’s go home.”

  The two women walked arm-in-arm to the stone path and then slowly drifted apart. They walked the rest of the way like that, like they weren’t bound together at all, almost like they were strangers.

  Duncan

  I left my hiding place to emerge near the water’s edge on my hands and knees. I’d been under the pier—timbers black and slimy above, bats like folded paper—abusing time, attempting to kill it, but it would not die. I’d carved a poem on the underside of the deck planks:

  I found a quick wit with his throat cut.

  Nameless harbor whispered hey mud slop.

  Chain link feathers like chains

  simply keeping me dry and water tight.

  Any time of day good time to quit.

  I had to use my hands to claw my way up the mud bank. I squatted down in the tall grass, the strong smell of piss all about me like I was standing in it, and surely I was. No one was about. The only lights were across town at the Line, but it was quiet from where I stood. Staying off the road, I threaded my way through the bunks to the mill docks. All birds of prey except me, a crow.

  I untied the first skiff I came to, pushed it from the bank, got in, and oared away. It was good to be moving out. I was done, couldn’t last another minute in town. Three days I hid under the shingle mill, stuffed into a warm spot near an outburst of steam pipes. I’d read all my mother’s letters to Haslett and arrived at the conclusion that I’d never known her at all. She died when she left.

  I broke into Heath’s store day before yesterday and stole a haversack and filled it with bread and apples. Dug cat holes with my bare hands and slept sitting up with the pistol in my lap. It was as good as a prison. What a good soldier I would be if I lived to see a war.

  I came around to the back of the mill, water slapping at the bow, and sat there bobbing and waiting for the day to take shape. Gray skies above and no wind, gulls M-ing seaward. Strikers appeared on the street, crowding the gates of the mill, all boots and bluster. Boyerton just buried, and they were striking. Oliver would have a tough go of it. Someone was standing on a log bunk, yelling down at the crowd, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Jonas was probably there, and I couldn’t help but think that I’d made it up to him getting fired. Surely he’d prefer a job, union or no, but big wages were agreeable to anyone. These were changes to be chalked up on the beneficial side for the workingman. Even I knew enough to see that with all the rules we already had—don’t murder, steal, rape, or burn out your neighbor—it only made sense to order out the life of the regular man so as he wouldn’t be incrementally or all at once shat upon. It’s better to have a plan, keeps people from getting hurt. Thought: If I hadn’t just killed Boyerton, I could’ve run for office and redeemed myself publicly and for all time, but the Truth of it is, I killed the high hog because he wouldn’t allow me to continue on godlessly with his only daughter. How’s that for revolution? How’s that for an eight-hour workday and a lick on the prick? Picket, my balls.

  Nobody was paying any attention to the watery edge of the day, but I hunched down regardless as I oared so my profile wouldn’t be as easily seen above the booms. The water was black and ripe with the smell of dead fish and kerosene. There was ice in the bottom of the boat, and I slid my boots around on it and then decided to kick at it until it broke loose, and once it had, I scooped up the chunks and threw them out. It felt like I’d done some necessary housekeeping, and I was satisfied with my work, but with the ice gone, water began to leak in. I scooted back and spread my legs to keep my feet dry. I pushed against the oars and looked for a lane that would take me up-harbor and south. I worried that I might have to get out of the skiff and haul it over the border logs that kept the booms together and then realized that of course I would because what kind of corral would be open to escape? I might have to abandon all hope and get out and swim if I didn’t plug the hole. I followed the lane I was in and didn’t take any that branched off; it didn’t matter which one I took because they all came to an end. I’d make my own gate, and there was truth in that too.

  Spotting my target, I let go of the oars, and the skiff drifted forward and the bow tonked against the outermost log. Chains held them together, spiked to the butts and linked endlessly. As the skiff drifted sidelong, I reached down and tried to unhitch the chain, but there was nothing doing; it had been pounded shut with a sledge and needed to be pried open with a bar. I pulled myself along by hand to an intersection so I could stand on two logs at once. When I was standing there, they weren’t as tricky as I’d imagined. I bounced a little and the giant logs dipped but didn’t roll. The chains held them upright.

  Once I had the bow pulled up and resting evenly on the log, all the water rushed to the stern and made it doubly hard to pull. I heaved and the logs sank and I was standing up to my knees in water, but still on the logs, and the smooth bottom of the boat came easily over the barkless logs, and when it was centered like a teetering totter I tipped it up and held it there and let the water drain from the hole. The cold water had soaked my boots and begun to climb my legs. I took an apple from my jacket pocket and ate it into a shape that would plug the largest hole and pounded it in with the heel of my hand. I gave the boat a push, and it splashed down and I caught the stern and climbed back in. The boat went effortlessly through the flat water. I felt like I could row around the world. Cross-harbor would be adequate. The wind was in my favor and in my face by turns and angles. There is true joy in rowing a boat, a bit of good work that a man can only get better at.

  The bow pierced the frozen reeds, and I shipped the oars. The skiff ground to a halt against the unseen bottom.

  Kozmin was suddenly in the reeds at the bank, his hat tipped back to open his face like a stanhope, no hiding under the roof. “Come ashore.”

  As we met eyes, I felt my stomach tighten.

  “Yer in trouble,” Kozmin said.

  “How’d you know I’d be here?”

  “I been watchin for you.” He pointed to the bluff. “I figured you’d come this way, so I waited. You notice if you been followed?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’re back there somewhere.”

  “You hear anything?”

  “I heard some.”

  “Like what?”

  “Boyerton’s dead.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And you killed him.”

  “I’ll never see the eagle’s nest. Never see the heights.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Somethin I said to Macklin once, talkin redemption.”

  “They’re gonna hang you for this. Won’t be any talk of redemption or anything else, I promise you that. They catch you—”

  “If they catch me.” I pulled the boat higher onto the shore and shouldered my bag. Kozmin was already walking away by the time I’d gained solid ground. “You waited for me, and now yer leavin?”

  “I’m not leavin. Yer followin.”

  “What’ve you got to eat?”

  “Filet mignon and stuffed goose.”

  “My stomach doesn’t take to goose.”

  “Your stomach’s as stupid as the rest of you. I don’t have no goose.”

  Kozmin smelled sharply of liquor and rotting meat, and his eyes followed mine wherever I looked.

  “Yer father’s waitin for us.”

  I stopped. Wet boots, numb toes. Apples knocking against my insides to be let out.<
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  “He’s a mile on the other side of the hill,” Kozmin said.

  “I don’t want to see him.”

  “C’mon. Maybe he’ll show you yer eagle’s nest.”

  I looked at the skiff, thought: Should I push it out? I was being followed—where would I go? Funny Kozmin saying that about him showing me the nest.

  “Just c’mon.”

  I walked behind Kozmin, into the woods. I wanted to dry my feet is all.

  Tartan

  Tartan had been walking for an hour and he could still smell the river through the trees, tangy like rotting berries or the stale sweat of a whore. Bellhouse and the others were inland, making the rounds through the log camps, like they’d find the boy that way. They didn’t want to leave the roads; they were afraid. Advance, through the trou de loup. Log camps aren’t for anyone but slaves, and you won’t find the hunted on the roads. Quarry has a sharp eye for dark shelters, but also for other quarry. They gather like shavings of metal stuck to a greasy magnet.

  The Soke, a troggy village populated by the maimed and the mutinous, low-graders, the sickbrained. When you give up, you go to the Soke. Cherquel Sha had told Tartan how to find the trail but wouldn’t come with him. There were rumors of leprosy.

  Woodsmoke filled the trees, and Tartan held his hand up and passed through like he was walking through the doorway of a circus tent, lifting the flap, and entered the village. Small, tilting shanties were braced to the trees and to stumps to keep the walls from falling down, the roofs from caving in. Centralized among the shacks was a larger U-shaped structure, two stories tall and set on pilings. Colorful curtains covered the windows, and the doors, one red and one blue, were closed to the day. Rows of empty bottles sat neatly on the upper railing, and Tartan thought that when the sun shone on the place, it must be pleasant to see. Bills were posted on the wall, warrants and public notices. If Robin Hood lived, Tartan thought, I’d find him in there fletching an arrow and sniffing at his bags of gold coin. Skiffs and a few canoes were stowed in the trees around the building and underneath. Hand tools were scattered where someone had been digging what appeared to be a root cellar or a grave for a horse. Regardless of its purpose, it was now a pond among many, unique only in its geometry. Where the round pond is common, the square pond is king. Plank walkways went here and there, but they weren’t elevated like in town; they were just thrown down, and in places you could see where the old planks had sunk and rotted and others had been thrown down on top. The ground was boggy and cut with fissures where fresh water ran among the moss and ferns.