The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  “For what? What did they gain in trade?” Duncan asked.

  “Salmon and a canoe. They could fish for themselves now, but they were no good at it.”

  “How long did they stay?”

  “They left in February and went downstream with intentions of rescuing Anna Petrovna and then making it to the Columbia River country, where they thought the people weren’t so ruthless.”

  Duncan snuck another pull off of Kozmin’s bottle, shook his head at the taste. “Do they rescue her?”

  “This is the part of the story that I like best.” The old man yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  “Well?” Jacob said.

  “I’ll tell you next time,” Kozmin said.

  “Fuck off and finish it,” Duncan said.

  “Fuck off and make me. Good night, gents.”

  The morning arrived blustery and gray, and at first the barking was hidden inside the bending and creaking of the trees, but it grew louder and louder until it escaped and filled the forest. Without a word Duncan hefted his gear and set out, bent at the waist in a flat-gaited run. Jacob had a frying pan in his hand, and he finished wiping it down with a blackened rag and then set it facedown on the rocks of the firepit to dry.

  “What about you?” Kozmin asked.

  “I’m goin. Give me a minute.”

  The barking was getting louder, and then it suddenly went silent and a lone brown-and-white hound came crashing through the brush into camp and bayed, circled the sorry trampled mess, and went on. Kozmin whistled for the dog, but it didn’t listen. Jacob picked up the pistol from where Duncan had left it and slipped on his pack.

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  “Catch him.” And within seconds he’d disappeared into the forest.

  Kozmin sat down next to the fire to wait. They’d be here directly. At least Duncan had eaten breakfast and had a good night’s rest.

  Chacartegui arrived half an hour later with two deputies.

  “When was he here?”

  “I ain’t seen him.”

  “The dogs tell me a different story.”

  “Well, I ain’t been here long, so maybe he was here before I was.”

  “He’s got two bedrolls, and you can see where another was sleeping,” a deputy said.

  “What d’you say to that?”

  “People come by. I don’t keep track.”

  “You still carving them toys?”

  “I quit.”

  “Why?”

  “Goin blind.”

  “That’s too bad. My little girl, she loved em when she was small. Still has a few.” Chacartegui packed his pipe from a pouch in his breast pocket and puffed it to life. “Kelly, you head back with Mr. Kozmin here. We’ll keep him locked up till we get this settled.”

  “The hell did I do?”

  “You helped a murderer escape, and I’ll charge you too if you try and make a stink about it.”

  “Won’t change a damn thing if you put me in jail.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “The dogs’ll tell you that much, won’t they? After they told you so much already, about the how and who and when of this particular place, it’d be rude a them to go tight-lipped all of a sudden.”

  Just then there was a shot, a moment later two more. They’d gotten so used to the sound of the dogs, they were all surprised when it stopped. To a man they knew what it meant.

  “Goddamn it, go on, Kelly. Get him out of here. Russel, you’re with me.” The sheriff and his deputy disappeared into the brush and the mire. Kelly waited for Kozmin to pack up, and then they started the long walk back to the horses.

  “How many men are lookin for him?” Kozmin asked.

  “I’d say near a hundred. We got people in boats watching the shore, and men at his house. Hank Bellhouse is out here somewhere too.”

  “He’s a boy still.”

  “Man enough to kill Boyerton, weren’t he.”

  “If you say so.”

  Oliver Boyerton was waiting with the horses. He had a pocketknife out, and he was squatted down, digging at something buried in a rotten stump. He turned when he heard Kozmin and the deputy approaching.

  “I heard shots.”

  “Yep,” Kelly said.

  “Whose dogs were they?” Kozmin asked.

  “Burright. He’ll be fuckin bent if somebody killed em.”

  “Why ain’t he here? Why’re you runnin em like they’re yers, when they ain’t?”

  “He wouldn’t do it, so the sheriff took his dogs.”

  “Wouldn’t why?”

  “Just wouldn’t.”

  “Funny for a man to keep hunting dogs and not want to hunt em.” So far they’d mostly ignored Oliver, like a kind of game.

  “Who’s this?” Oliver asked.

  “Mr. Kozmin. We found him in camp. He was with Ellstrom, but he run off when he heard us. We’re right on him now, or we were until he shot the dogs.”

  Oliver came over and offered his hand, and Kozmin took it. “Mr. Kozmin, I’m Oliver Boyerton.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “And you. So you know where Duncan’s gone?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You’re taking him to jail?” Oliver asked Kelly.

  “Orders.”

  “That doesn’t seem necessary.”

  “Orders.”

  “I’ll wait here for the sheriff.”

  “Suit yourself.” Kelly took Kozmin’s pack and busied himself lashing it to one of the horses.

  “I don’t ride,” Kozmin said.

  “Better walk fast, then.”

  Oliver

  The old slag brain followed the deputy down the trail, and I was alone. Chirp go the birds. Roar go the tigers. Mixed up the world; it’s happened to me. Last week I wouldn’t have shook that man’s hand if I were at gunpoint. Nobody said what I should do. Talking out loud. Like it matters. Goddamn this forest. I’ll keep that mill turning just so I can change everything into matchsticks and toothpicks, slivers, chips, and dust. A sip from the bottle. Nothing sweet about that whiskey. Nothing smooth. My Mabel will be waiting for me at midnight. I’ll stay here until dark. Then I’ll have to ride in the dark. I’ll have to spend hours alone and in the dark. More than birds chirping. And I know there aren’t any tigers, but there are bears and mountain lions, and what the fuck is a lion but a tiger by another name. Twigs snapping? No, shots. Distant shooting. I should go and get in the fight. What if they were killing Duncan? I’d need to be there. I’d need to know. My father’s horse, Biltmore, didn’t like him, and he despises me. C’mon. Knick knick. That’s a neutered cockknocker. Let me up. Let’s join the fight. War fucking hoot hoot.

  It’s better on horseback, the world. Until the limbs start smacking you upside the head. Lost my hat. Off the horse. Stay the fuck put you hoof snorting pig ass turdhammer son of a bitch. Hat applied. Hat adjusted. Bearing set. And. Back. On. The. Goddamn it I said stay fucking still will you I can’t get in the fucking crow hop motherfucker. And. Back in the saddle. Rifle in the scabbard and a .44 on my hip. Fuck me, I’m a killer.

  No way they could’ve rode through this deadfall and now, now dismount. Biltmore locks his legs and won’t move an inch and looks at me, seen this look before in the eyes of my mother.

  I’ll leave you.

  Like I care, says Biltmore with his eyes. Like I give one twabbling turd what you say.

  Across the nose with the reins. Now you care, mean eyes.

  The horse turns his head and I stand and wait while he drills a hole through the earth with his one-inch-thick stream of urine. Give me a cock like that, and I’d tell everyone to fuck a half-dead badger if they pleased.

  We went together but apart, horse and rider. The tracks were easy to follow, and an hour later we were in Ellstrom’s camp. I poked around. Ate some jerky. No liquor I could find. Got my own. Pissed on the firepit with my back to Biltmore so he wouldn’t see. He huffled his lips at me, and I couldn’t finish. Buttoned up, I sa
t down on a rock and watched the sky. I didn’t want to go any farther. I might stay here. I might go back. I might, the flea declares. The difficult thing about losing my father is that I get the feeling that the storm I have coming is still out to sea. There’s a thousand breaking waves coming for me, but far as I can tell the water’s flat. Dead calm. Doldrums.

  Biltmore watched me and chewed on the roof tarp, tugged it until it fell, and then stood on it.

  Yer strange, Biltmore. A real character is what you are. Feel good on the hooves, standing on that tarp? Don’t answer that. I’ll die of fright if you do. I wish I hadn’t pissed, dribbled—compared to you—on the fire, because I’m staying. My outpost, strategist that I am, is behind my enemy’s walls.

  I had a hell of a time getting the fire to burn, and once I did, it reeked of piss. I was scared and I didn’t let it go out until morning.

  Jacob

  He went much quicker than I was accustomed, and I had to run like I was a young man to catch him, and when I caught up to that hound I didn’t want to at all but I shot him and hit him in the shoulder and he fell. I had to look away, and it took two more shots to finish him, but it was quiet after that. I reloaded and took a few deep breaths to ease myself down. I knew there were more dogs but they’d quit barking when the shots were fired. They’d be running toward the sound, so I hid behind a tree and got ready with a piece of rope from my pack. They came out of the trees and found the dead one and sniffed at him and I whistled and stepped out and got the rope on one and after some cajoling the other too. I made a couple of muzzles that looked more like an experiment in knotting than anything else and tied them to a sizable alder. I could hear them whining as I went on.

  Duncan was running. I followed the kicked-up dirt of his tracks. He didn’t need to run. I distinctly wanted to tell him that. Don’t. Run.

  I found him not far from the river with his back against a tree.

  “You don’t have to worry about the dogs,” I told him, my loudest whisper.

  “Was that you shooting?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s Kozmin?”

  “He stayed behind.” I went to him and took off my pack and squatted down. I unhooked my skin and squeezed a cold jet of water into my mouth. I offered some to Duncan, but he declined.

  He surprised me then, asked: “Did you take something from the attic?”

  “Yes. I had to read her words again. I needed to remember.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “It wasn’t yours to take.”

  “You can have it back.”

  “Where am I going to keep anything safe?”

  I couldn’t help but think of Nell when I looked at him. “Why’d you shoot Boyerton? Somebody put you up to it?”

  “No.”

  “What was it then?”

  “Teresa, his daughter. He was keeping us apart.”

  “That’s an old story.”

  We sat there and didn’t speak, only breathed, and self-consciously that.

  “I know another one,” he said.

  “Another what?”

  “Another story. One you’d hate to hear.”

  I imagined it was going to be the sad tale of his life so far, and I dreaded hearing it, but it was for me and nobody else. “Go on and tell it.”

  He swallowed hard and held one hand with the other like he was a child or a woman. “Uncle Matius was the one that hit my mother. It wasn’t you.”

  My breath was snatched right out of my chest, and it didn’t come back. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I thought of my brother, his face like a full obsidian statue in my mind, and the ruin he’d let come of my life. I thought of Nell.

  “I killed him,” Duncan said quietly.

  “What?” I didn’t believe him.

  “I buried him in the yard under some fence posts.” Duncan stood and shouldered his pack. “I don’t want you to come with me.”

  “Wait, you killed him? You killed Matius?”

  “I did.”

  “My poor boy.”

  He was about to cry.

  “There’s somethin else.”

  “What?”

  “She’s not dead.”

  “Who?”

  “My mother.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Don’t matter. I was told she left us, that fat Haslett helped her.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Did you see her dead?”

  I couldn’t answer that. I went to sit down but fell over. Duncan was up and moving on.

  “Wait. You don’t even know where you’re going.”

  “The coast.” He stopped and opened his coat and tossed a packet of letters at me.

  “What’s this?”

  He didn’t answer me; he just walked away, and I followed him. I opened a letter as I walked, and her handwriting, her words, made me weep. I couldn’t face it. I put the letter away and stopped and shoved them safely into my pack. My legs were soft beneath me.

  When I had my office, I used to listen to him bang around in the apartment upstairs. I’d never imagined such a revelatory and adult piece of information could come to me by way of my son, but I’d always had a hard time believing it was me that did it. Had the thought: my son is a murderer, but I’m not. My brother is, or he wasn’t either. Odd man out, and she’s out there oddly alone. If my thoughts were the trees, Nell was the wind that moved them. It seemed I’d been angling for this all along, pushing against the rail of the current but unable to break through. The thing was, I hated Matius and wanted to be the one that killed him. I wanted to go dig him up and kill him again. I wanted my wife back, and since it hadn’t been me that hit her, my wish didn’t seem unreasonable, not to me it didn’t.

  I caught up to him and we walked through the day and covered ground I hadn’t seen before. I forced myself not to think of Nell because I’d gotten fairly good at that. I could shut my mind down if I kept moving.

  There was an abandoned homestead with a small overgrown apple orchard. The cedar shake house didn’t have any windows, and the door was missing. I waited outside while Duncan went in and poked around. He came back with a bent and dirty spoon and what looked to be a couple of moldering fox pelts.

  “How’re they gonna eat or stay warm without these?”

  “Left in a hurry, I guess.”

  “I think they died. There’s a stain on the ground.”

  “We could stay here for the night and move on in the morning.”

  “You can. I’m goin.”

  Again, he walked off and I followed. Not much later I caught the glint of the spoon as he chucked it into a swamp pond. We climbed a series of low hills, crawled through tangles of brush in the troughs, and crossed into another drainage. The forest receded, and there was open ground. I don’t think either of us wanted to cross the clearing. We waited in the trees for a half hour or so to be sure no one was around.

  It was here that Duncan told me how Matius had cut his foot with the ax and gotten blood poisoning. I was hungry and sick to hear about it at the same time.

  “He asked for me to kill him, and when I told him fuck you, I won’t, he told me what he’d done.”

  “You believed him?”

  “I put both barrels into his head.”

  “What if he told you that just to get his way?”

  “Then fuck him for gettin it.” He turned and faced me. “You should know. You should know what happened. You’re just as bad because you let him.”

  He jumped to his feet and made his way across the field to the safety of the trees on the other side. Then he was gone. We’d gotten close to it. Right against the hot wall. I couldn’t stand. I didn’t feel like I could go on. Years play strangely on us. If Kozmin was there with his bottle I would’ve gotten drunk. Nothing could’ve stopped me. I sat there, and I don’t think I’d ever felt so sorry for myself, and that’s saying something. Then the dogs were loose again, barking, coming c
loser. I wasn’t moving. I cocked my pistol and waited. Honestly, I’m afraid of dogs, but earlier I’d completely forgotten. They never saw me; they must’ve lost the trail for a moment because they were in the middle of the clearing, running in circles, when Chacartegui and the deputy came loping by. I watched them go. They were right on him, and they’d have him soon enough. The memory of walking out of Doc Haslett’s house so many years ago wasn’t so different. Duncan had thrown a rat at me. I could still feel the impact, the shame.

  The two men were already to the other side of the clearing and into the trees, gone. I gave everything away. I should’ve buried my brother myself. I wasn’t giving away my son.

  Tartan

  Tartan and Cherquel Sha poled a flat-bottomed canoe up the Johns River. The water was the color of rusted gunmetal, and the banks were dusted in snow. The smell of wet stone filled the air. Bellhouse and the McCandlisses had stayed in town to manage what Bellhouse called “the new union fervor.” The call had been put in to San Francisco for more support, but Bellhouse’s reputation as a thug and a murderer put even the toughs in the Sailor’s Union off. They said he could go it alone until he showed progress. Didn’t sit well. The labor unions didn’t want anything to do with him. Bellhouse wanted Duncan on the spit to leverage against the remainders of the Boyerton clan. Martyrdom had not been ruled out. But hauling up a strike against a one-eyed teenager and his mother seemed in a general way to be a waste of time. Tartan cared less about the millworkers than he did about the sailors. Failure looked like a better option, let things continue as they were. It wasn’t about dominance, no matter what Bellhouse thought. Who wanted the pig if you got chops for free and didn’t have to sling the slop, either? Men like Bellhouse, as Tartan saw it, were successful right up to the point when they weren’t, and then it was done. No second chances, no talking about it. He’d be on top one minute, dead the next. Best case, Tartan would find himself counting the reward money while he stood in a pool of Bellhouse’s blood.

  “How many days they been lookin now?” Sha asked. The boat glided along, and a viscid wake peeled off beside them.

  “Seven or eight.”