by David Ohle
"You're one of the Ballses that used to live here?"
"Mildred."
"Oh, yeah, they told me about you. They said you were good friends with the Reverend."
Mildred applied unguent to Charity's leg and re-tied the bandana. "You can't be friendly with someone who's killed your husband with a faulty parachute, but that's another story."
Charity rubbed her eyes with bent fingers. "I'm sleepy, Mildred. I want to go to bed." When she tried to open them, the lids were stuck closed. Mildred applied unguent to them with cautious strokes until they opened.
Katie put her hands on her squared-off hips. "Heck if I know where you two'll stay tonight. The miners live in shacks down by the mine. I have a cot in the back. You're welcome to get down on the floor here if you want. Or, there's a mule wagon coming through tonight, a big freighter. They haul kegs of teeth to Bum Bay. That's a heavy load, but they'll take on a couple of passengers for a few bucks. I wouldn't go back to Pisstown. It's still calm in Bum Bay, I hear."
"A mule wagon? There were never mules on the Island."
"They brought them in to work in the mines, for heavy pulling."
A little dribble of cadaverine made its way from Charity's nostril to her lip.
"Get me another Jake," Mildred said.
"Too bad the miners wrecked your property. They even poisoned the groundwater and killed all your persimmon trees. It's a shame. I must say, though, when the trees died, the imps ran off. They love persimmons, you know. They used to serve a good imp stew here."
"Yes, I remember. We tamed a few and kept them as pets for my precious grandchildren, who also loved persimmons."
Katie removed loaves of urpmeal bread from the pelletstove oven and set them on the window sill to cool. "Here comes the freight wagon."
The mules drew the heavy wagon along the sandy road at a slow pace. Two Americans were aboard, one driving the mules, the other tightly clutching a carpetbag in his lap. The driver wore a wide-brimmed muleskin hat and a hand-sewn muleskin vest. A 20-caliber Sharps rifle lay at his feet. The passenger, who seemed wracked with pain, wore impskin boots and a tailored gray suit. He was unarmed.
"How's that back of yours, Mr. Harp?" the driver asked.
"I'm in unspeakable agony. I may as well be hanging on a cross."
"Probably worms got to your spine. Maybe you're infested."
"Not likely. I'm completely worm-free."
"What do you have in that bag you're hugging so hard?"
"That would be my business, Mr. Dewey."
"Well now, what are you, some kind of a snit?"
"My clothes, my toiletries, a tortoise shell comb. Nothing else."
"I'll bet. I'll just bet. It looks mighty heavy."
"I paid you five bucks for this ride. That should guarantee me some measure of privacy."
"We're stopping at Binder's for a while."
"Not for long, I hope. I'm in a hurry."
"Long enough for me to empty my bowels and fill my stomach."
Harp climbed down from the rig, still clutching the bag, wincing in pain with every movement of his back.
"Let me give you a hand with that, Ray."
Harp snatched it out of the driver's grasp. "No, thank you. I'll manage it myself."
"You've got something pretty precious in there, don't you? It's gold, isn't it? You've got a big brick of solid tooth gold in there, am I right?"
"Nothing of the kind."
"You know what they say about pure, porcelain-free tooth gold, don't you? To have it is to live in fear. To want it is to live in sorrow."
"I have nothing to fear, believe me."
Dewey entered the Binder store first, followed by a hobbled Harp, who had one hand on an aching hip and the other clutching the bag to his chest.
"Hello there, Howard Dewey," Katie said. "You haven't been through here in a while."
Dewey leaned his Sharps rifle against the wall. "Things were slow over at the mine, but now they hit a new vein, a big one. I'll be making regular runs from now on."
Harp sat beside one of the drums. "Two Jakes, please."
"What've you got for food, Katie girl?" Dewey chose the drum nearest his rifle to sit beside.
"Eels is all. And bread."
"All right, bring it on. I'm hungry enough to eat the ass end of a hydrophobic skunk."
Suddenly Katie was busy waiting tables and cooking eels.
Dewey tipped his hat to Mildred. "Evening, Ma'am."
"Good evening, sir. Katie tells me you sometimes take on passengers. We'd like to go to Bum Bay. I have a pied a terre there, with plenty room for myself and little Charity here. She's an orphan. She belongs to me now. I've given my word."
"I suppose I could put you in back, on top of the teeth. It'd be five bucks for you, three for the stinker."
Katie offered to warm an eel up for Harp. "No, thank you. My stomach is a little tub of acid. It was a hard ride."
"What you need to do," Mildred said, "is ball up some of that bread and drop it into your Jake."
"She's right," Dewey said, "Jake and bread'll do it."
Katie brought Harp a slice. In the process of balling the bread, he lost his grip on his bag and it fell to the floor, partially open. Dewey glanced down and saw the unmistakable glint of solid tooth gold.
"There it is, I knew it. This man has staked himself an illegal claim. No wonder he's got a sore back. He's been working his own private mine, in violation of every law on the books."
Katie picked up the bag and handed it to Harp. "Feels like about twenty pounds."
Dewey counted on his fingers. "That's what, on the Bum Bay market, that's a hundred bucks."
Harp said, "I was digging for potsherds. I found that brick." He held forth two open palms. "Do these look like the hands of a miner?"
Indeed, white and soft, with slender, delicate fingers, they were not the hands of anyone who'd done anything but light work. "I found it only a foot deep, under a dead persimmon tree, near the main house."
Dewey took up his rifle and pointed it at Harp's head. "Mr. Harp, sin has many tools but a lie is a handle that fits them all. Lying is a cursed and hateful vice. Now you ladies ought to turn around so you don't witness what I'm about to do."
"Let's be reasonable here," Harp said, shivering with fear, his aches forgotten.
"I'm going to take the law into my own hands, Mr. Harp. In the name of the Reverend, I'm about to march you outside, give you a pick and shovel to dig your own grave, then I'm going to unload this old Sharps right into your belly."
"I'm perfectly willing to share, even though I'm appalled at what I take to be outright armed robbery," Harp said.
"There's an element of finders keepers in all this, I have to admit," Mildred said. "But surely we should all have a share. It was mined from my estate, which entitles me to a share, and you, Mr. Dewey, will earn your third by taking us to Bum Bay."
"Me and Mr. Sharps, we'll keep you safe all the way. That I can promise."
Harp was somewhat calmed that Dewey had lowered the Sharps a few inches. "When we get to Bum Bay, we'll have it melted down and divided three ways."
"I'm sleepy all the time," Charity said, "but I never sleep much."
Katie led her to her cot. "There, honey, you lie down there and rest while I serve these people some supper."
When Dewey was full of eels and Jake, and had relieved himself in the ditch behind the store, the hour was late. All but Katie got aboard the freight wagon and hunkered down for the night-long ride. Mildred and Charity, both in a state of exhaustion, fell asleep quickly atop the sacks of teeth and didn't awaken until the wagon's wheels rolled noisily onto the wooden planks of the Bum Bay ferry and then stopped.
Dewey parted the canvas canopy at the back of the wagon, permitting Mildred and Charity to glimpse the pre-dawn sky and feel the chill of morning air. "You two better keep your voices down. There's a couple of Guards on board." He lifted Harp's bag into the wagon bed. "Hide the brick under one
of those sacks. If they take a notion to look us over, and find this, it's the Purple Isle for all of us." He glanced away, then turned back, his face growing pale, his teeth set. "All quiet in there. Here come the Guards. Tuck that bar away."
Mildred acted quickly and the bar was out of sight, beneath a sack. Spreading her skirts, she sat on top of the sack and pulled Charity just next to her.
The Guards introduced themselves in a courteous and respectful manner as D.J. Purgeth, who wanted to be called Sasha, and D. St. Dizier, of the Reverend's Hookerite Guard.
"Good morning, people," Purgeth said. "Are we going to Bum Bay?"
"That was our intention," Mildred said. "My property has been appropriated. We have nowhere to stay on the Island."
"Who's the stinker?"
"I'm Charity. I'm only thirteen but I look a hundred. Isn't that funny?"
"I'm overcome with laughter," St. Dizier said, unzipping his tunic to reveal a spanking paddle affixed to his belt. "This paddle is made of hedge-apple wood."
"Sometimes known as bow d'arc," Purgeth added.
"No wood is stronger," St. Dizier said.
"With the notable exception of ironwood," interjected Purgeth.
"Yes, that's true, and these little spikes are intended to leave a bottom fairly bloody, even through the clothing," St. Dizier explained.
Dewey spoke up. "I'm just hauling teeth to Bum Bay. I've got all my papers, all my permits, all my licenses."
"Who is that person sitting up front, the one in the suit?"
"He says his name is Harp."
"Ask him to step down here. We need to have a confab .... Who's the old woman?"
"She says she's Mildred Balls."
"That's right, I am Mildred."
Harp climbed down and joined the gathering. "Have we done something wrong? I'm in unspeakable pain and in something of a hurry to get home for a long rest."
St. Dizier opened his tunic again and Harp saw the paddle, then Purgeth opened his, exposing an inside pocket stuffed with clean rags and another holding a bottle of liniment.
"I know you two," Harp said. "Purgeth and St. Dizier. The famous French spanking team. I've been to one of your shows."
"He remembers us," Purgeth said.
"Do you remember us, Mildred? What about you, Dewey?"
No answer came from either.
"Get out of the wagon, Miss Stinker. We're going to give these people a demonstration."
Charity clambered out of the wagon bed.
St. Dizier said, "My paddle has a hundred and one spikes. I'll give her two or three swats and we'll see the damage it can do."
"I'm ready with the liniment and rags." Purgeth held them out.
"Step out there in the open, Charity girl. Take down your skirt and your underdrawers."
By now, a small crowd of ferry passengers had gathered to watch.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Balls. It won't hurt." Charity raised her skirt. "I don't wear underdrawers. They stick to my skin. I wear skirts, so I can get air." She bent over.
St. Dizier slammed her bottom with his paddle three times in quick succession. The third blow knocked her off her feet. There was little bleeding, but quite a bit of torn and punctured flesh.
"That was fun," Charity giggled. "I think I felt something. A tiny, tiny little hurt. Can we do it again?"
"Sorry, girl," Purgeth said, "we've got fares to collect. Other wagons to inspect. You people go about your business."
The ferry's bell rang and the lumbering craft moved slowly away from the dock and across the gloomy straits without incident in just under twelve hours.
On landing at Witchy Toe, a small settlement on the West shore, Dewey drove the wagon off the ferry and to a roadblock for a cursory inspection by a Guard.
"Hey, there, Dewy. What's your load?"
"Teeth is all. They struck a new vein. I'm wore out. My mules are wore out. How much to let me pass?"
"Ten'll do."
"Here you go." Dewey handed him a ten.
"How far to Bum Bay?" Harp asked. "I'm in great pain, almost unbearable."
"It's not how far," the Guard snapped, "it's how long. In a rig like that you'll be four or five days getting there. You have to cross the Indiana Prairie, which, if you read the papers, is infested with rabid imps and pocked with the holes they live in. It's dangerous ground and the going is rough. You can hold a jar of urpmilk in your lap and make starch in about a half a mile."
"That ain't no fun," Dewey said, "even for somebody with a steel spine like me."
The wagon headed down Witchy Toe's main street and turned into an alley, passing a small crowd of men standing over a fallen stinker. Two of the onlookers, Major Peppard and Private Ratoncito, were in Guard uniforms. The Major wore thick-lensed eyeglasses and stood head-and-shoulders taller than his diminutive partner. Another onlooker, in a black suit, appeared to be a mortician. Shortly, a woman joined the group with a sketchpad and began sketching the stinker. "What stage?" she asked the Major. "Fourth?"
"Late fourth. He's been lying here three weeks, maybe five. The imps've been coming into town at night to feed on him. We're thinking we'll go on ahead with the burial tomorrow."
In preparation for casting a plaster likeness, the mortician applied hot beeswax to the stinker's face while an assistant stirred plaster into a pail of water with a wooden stave.
Dewey obeyed Private Ratoncito's signal and reined in the mules. For the first time in many hours, Mildred and Charity were able to part the canvas and look out. "It's nice to breathe fresh air," Mildred said. "Those teeth have a distinctive odor, like a stinker."
"I don't breathe any more," Charity sighed. "Or smell either."
The tall Guard tipped his hat. "Morning, all. Hello, Dewey."
"Hey, there, Major Peppard, Private Ratoncito. Got a load of teeth here and three passengers. How much?"
"Where you going?"
"Bum Bay."
"Let's say ten bucks."
Dewey handed down the money to Private Ratoncito. "Looks like one of your wheels is loose, Dewey. Better get on down to the blacksmith's. You don't want a broken spoke out there on the prairie."
Dewey spit cotton. "I'll be damned if bad luck don't follow me like my shadow. I guess I'll head over there right now.
Though the mules were dripping perspiration and foaming at their mouths, Dewey whipped them on. The wagon continued along the alley a few blocks to the Tooth Gold Exchange, pulling up to the loading dock at the rear.
As the sacks were being unloaded, Mildred and Charity availed themselves of a nearby latrine. "I do pass gas sometimes," Charity said, sitting on the hole beside Mildred. "But nothing solid ever comes." She stood and spit three teeth into the hole. "I don't need those anymore."
"Poor, girl," Mildred said. "Poor, poor girl."
When the wagon was empty and Dewey had collected a hundred bucks, the party continued to the blacksmith's, who was forging a part for a strange-looking wagon parked behind the shop. It had the general shape of a boat, with two wooden masts and light, thin wheels twelve feet in diameter.
The blacksmith rested his hammer on the anvil. "What can I do for you, Dewey?"
"What in tarnation kind of wagon is that out back?"
"That there is a wind wagon, my friend, made special for Reverend Hooker. You run them sails up, she'll roll over the prairie like a ship on water. I'm forging her brand right now before I burn it into the stern." He grasped the branding iron with his long-handled pliers and lifted it from the coals.
Charity said, "That spells RH."
"That's right, little stinker girl," the smithy said, "it stands for Reverend Hooker."
As the blacksmith burned the RH brand into the stillgreen wood of the wagon's stern, sweet-smelling wisps of smoke drifted into the shop. "The Reverend's people will be down here in a few days to pick it up and sail it across the prairie."
Dewey was growing impatient. "I've got a loose wheel and a cracked spoke. And I've got a brick of tooth gold
I want you to melt down and divvy up three ways. So hurry up."
"Soon's I finish here, I'll fix that wheel for you. It's about to fall off. You won't get a mile out of her. Can't melt your gold, though."
"And why is that? You got all the tools, you got a hot-as-hell fire. What else do you need?"
"You been out on that Island too long, friend. Hooker's declared that tooth gold possession is illegal. You get caught with it, you're going to be living on Permanganate the rest of your life. I'd go dig a hole and bury it if I was you. Maybe come back in a few years. On the other hand, if you want to be sure you don't get caught, leave it with me and I'll see about putting it under some dirt for digging up later."
"That is a heavy blow to the enterprise," Harp said.
"He's lying," Dewey said, snatching the blacksmith's hammer and handing it to Harp. "Here, hit him on the head with it, hard, when I tell you. You know what they say? They say `He who lives by the hammer will die by the anvil."' He raised the Sharps and pointed it at the blacksmith's chest. "This man here, by the name of Harp, he's going to brain you. So get ready and make your peace."
"Why do you think he's lying?" Mildred asked. "Shouldn't we give him the benefit of the doubt?"
"Look at that ugly face. It's got liar written all over it. Talks out the side of his mouth, all the time blinking, nervous as pudding. He takes us for a pack of cretins. You think he would have buried that gold once we got on down the road? Don't be an idiot."
"Hold your horses," the blacksmith said. "Just to show I'm not lying, look here." He took them a ways down the alley, where a broadside was tacked to a barn door. "See there."
The broadside depicted a brick of tooth gold embossed with a skull and crossbones. The warning was:
DON'T GET CAUGHT WITH ONE OF THESE.
"It seems very clear to me," Mildred said.
"He could change his mind in a week," Harp said. "The price could triple when the law is rescinded, once he corners the market."
"True enough," the blacksmith said, "so if you want to take your chances, go on off with that brick and see what happens. And give my regards to Permanganate Island."
