The Ninth Metal

by Benjamin Percy

  “You bet,” she says. “If you can give me a minute, I’ll be right back.”

  “No, just give me that plate with the baked potato on it, would you? And the other one? With the Jell-O salad?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she says, “but these are ​—”

  Golden reaches for the plates and says, “Surely we appreciate it.”

  She doesn’t hide her sigh, but she continues on while the two men weight the map with the plates. Before them lies the topography of St. Louis County, which looks like a giant fingerprint. The far-reaching Omnimetal Strike Zone is highlighted in light blue. Red ink outlines the perimeter of an area within this; it’s labeled Gunderson Woods and has an X at its heart. “You know what this is?”

  “I know what this is.”

  “The mother lode.” When Walt leans forward, the silver tips of his bolo tie knock together and chime. “If we was gold mining, that’s what we’d call it. Four hundred acres of deposits. Big mounds. Deep pits. Gouges. Veins. Those formations they’re calling chimneys and spurs. Bunch of trees coated by melt.” He lays a hand on the map, covering a good chunk of it, as if he could scoop it all up. “This is our shot, you understand. To finally beat out Frontier. Take control of the energy game.”

  “They’re still after it?”

  “You bet they are. Problem for both of us is, this here land’s owned by a crazy person. Betsy Gunderson is her name, but everybody calls her Mother now. Forty-five years old. Widow. Big old load of omnimetal crashes into her backyard and she suddenly decides she’s the second coming of Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, and all the rest. Religious prophet. Queen of the metal-eaters. They got this saying: Metal is. Like it’s the end and it’s the beginning, forever and ever, amen. I’ll tell you what metal is. Metal’s money.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s all these weird formations, see. One section looks like a shiny Stonehenge or something. Big silver crater that shoots up at the edges into ten or twelve spurs. Like a crown. Like some hell claw reaching out of damnation.”

  “That was a real good description, Walt.”

  “She’s treating this like some religious site. Got people pilgrimaging to it. Got metal-eaters pretending her into some sort of high priestess. She’s nuts, of course. Total loony tunes. Sent my best pitchmen out there. We’ve offered and we’ve offered and we’ve offered. And it’s not that she doesn’t understand what we’re offering—it’s that she does not care.”

  “You’ve tried other means, of course.”

  “I would have that woman shot in the head, run over by a semi, and fed to dogs if she ever left the damn place. But she never leaves the damn place. And Gunderson Woods is not only surrounded by a spiked wall of logs like some cocksucking pioneer outpost, it’s patrolled twenty-four/seven by metal-eaters carrying AR-15s.”

  “So they’re not the kind of cult that believes in peace and harmony and sings ‘Kumbaya’ around the campfire with rainbows shooting out of their eyes.”

  “No, they are most certainly not.”

  Walt’s cell rings. He pulls it out and studies the screen and says, “Oh, shut up,” then fumblingly silences it before continuing. “You understand how important it is? That we win this property? We don’t have enough holdings right now for that military contract, but if we can secure this land, it’s ours for the taking. The head of Frontier keeps claiming that we’re corporate outsiders. That he’s a local boy who’s made good. And all these Lutherans eat up what he spoons them and sell their mineral rights to him instead of us. But that’s a steaming pile of horseshit. He’s got Saudis and Indians and Chinese on his board. I’m telling you—Gunderson Woods, it’s our stone in a sling. This is how we fight the local giant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want that land. I want a signature on a piece of paper that reads Gunderson. And I want it now.” Their food arrives—big, oozing T-bone steaks slopped over with eggs. Walt tucks a napkin in his collar and neatens his silverware, and his hand lingers on the steak knife. “I brought you up here, Mickey, because you’re good at fixing things. You fixed things for me in Alaska and you fixed things for me in Texas.”

  “Copy that.”

  “I’m trusting that you can fix this too?”

  “That’s what I do, isn’t it, Walt? Fix your shit?”

  “You’re my man.”

  “I’m your man.”

  7

  * * *

  The wedding guests come from all over the world. Brits, Argentines, Chinese, Israelis, South Africans, Indians, Russians, Saudis. Some fly into Northfall on private jets; others roll into town in rented Ferraris and Escalades. They do not know Talia Frontier. They are here out of respect for her father, Ragnar.

  He stands by the door of the church to greet every one of them. He is eighty-five but could pass for seventy. Barrel-chested. A full head of silver hair. Big hands, the right one brightened by a ring on his middle finger that glows with the soft blue light of omnimetal.

  He refuses a chair, so Yesno stands beside him, his hands free in case the old man falls. But he doesn’t, even though the sun reddens his cheeks and the heat wilts his boutonniere.

  John waits in line with everyone else because that’s what a guest does. And he is a guest. He no longer belongs here—and that aloneness and out-of-placeness makes him feel proud, not sad. He got out. Without his father’s money. Or connections. Or blessing. He left. And now he’s back home, a different man.

  When it is John’s turn, his father holds out his arms and says, “My son the hero.” His voice is deep but rusted with age. They embrace for a long moment, and John can feel the old man’s bones pushing through the fabric of his suit. He smells the same as when John was a boy, like maple syrup and fine leather. He pulls back and places a hand on the side of John’s head. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says. “We’ve missed you.”

  “I’m glad to be here too,” John says.

  “How was the train?”

  “Easy. Blinked my eyes and I was home.”

  “Best way to travel, the Bullet. You know we’re building a southern corridor next. Ninth-metal tracks are going to connect the entire country before long.”

  “I heard that.”

  “We’re building a whole new world.” The old man’s face creases with wrinkles when he smiles. “No date?”

  “Just me, Pops.”

  “I thought you might bring someone pretty home with you.”

  “I had someone pretty before. And you didn’t like her much.”

  “I liked her fine. But let’s not talk about that.” The old man fingers the medals along John’s chest, including two Purple Hearts, and shakes his head with pride. “I always knew you had incredible potential.”

  “How’d you know that?” His voice is calm even as it’s challenging. “Because I was your son?”

  His father rolls back his head and purses his lips and raises a single finger, but before he can say anything, Yesno nudges in between them. “We’ve got your old room made up for you at the house, John. And I bet you two will enjoy catching up there later.”

  “That sounds good,” John says and his father says, “Good, good,” and claps John on the shoulder, directing him inside, then turns his attention to the next person in line. “Ah, Peter and Emily! Thank you for being here!”

  The church is Lutheran, like so many of the churches up north, and newly constructed, like so many of the buildings in Northfall. It is painted slate gray and sits on the shore of Moon Lake. The wall behind the pulpit is made entirely of glass except for the giant cross that doubles as support beams. The sanctuary seats five hundred, and it is so full that the ushers have to set up three rows of folding chairs in the back. This is where John sits.

  Fans spin. People swish their programs back and forth to make a breeze. He overhears a conversation in Japanese, another in Russian, with the same word connecting them both: omnimetal. Business. Everything surrounding his father comes down to business.

 
There are at least five photographers in the sanctuary, and overhead, a circling drone with the eye of a camera bulging from its abdomen captures video of the guests as they await the wedding party. When it hovers low over the congregation, its blades whirring, a few people shade their eyes or turn their heads away, not wanting to be recorded.

  John has never met the groom, but Talia has e-mailed photos of the two of them. He enters now and stands at the altar, tall and athletic, sunburned, too-white teeth, his blond hair gelled into messy spikes. He’s a decade younger than his sister. Someone who will look nice beside her. Someone who will do as he’s told.

  The procession begins and cameras flash as the groomsmen and bridesmaids march down the aisle. It takes John a moment to realize that one of the groomsmen is his older brother. “Jesus, Nico,” he whispers. His build is skeletal and his hair has thinned to wisps. His arm is locked with a bridesmaid’s and she seems to holding him up. When he reaches the altar and moves to his place near the groom, his eyes appear as dark hollows with a soft blue light emanating from them.

  John has heard about this. The side effects of omnimetal. Of smoking it and snorting it. Metal-eaters, the addicts are called.

  Nico is the dreamer of the family. The artist. He plays music. He makes jewelry and paints and carves and sculpts. Family Christmases long ago always involved sweaters or stocking caps knit by him or watercolor landscapes painted by him. Sometimes he claimed to see auras. Sometimes he claimed to have visions. Once he dreamed that their father was bleeding from a hole in his head, and the next day Ragnar walked into an open cupboard door and fell to the kitchen floor with a gashed temple. No one was sure what to make of Nico. They all treated him like a delicate pet.

  When the organ begins to grind out Pachelbel’s Canon, everyone rises from the pews, and his father enters with Talia, her arm hooked through his. Her skin is a burnt orange, the fake tan deep enough that it almost hides the barbed-wire tattoo stitching her left biceps. Even when she was a teenager, she started every day with a hard workout, pushing tractor tires, climbing ropes, hurling medicine balls, and years of exercise have given her a thick build of mature muscle. Her trunk of a neck is highlighted by a short haircut that angles sharply to her collar. There has never been a lot of love between brother and sister, but John can’t help but smile, matching her expression.

  The ceremony lasts half an hour, and after the pastor speaks of love and loyalty, after a cousin reads from First Corinthians, after the bride and groom exchange their vows, the drone circles the altar so close that it startles Talia and she swipes at it with her bouquet and loses a flutter of petals.

  * * *

  “I believe in this town.” His voice pretends confidence, but he has to clear his throat twice to get out the rest. “I believe in Northfall.” His face twitches. His hair plasters his forehead and his deputy blues are soaked through with sweat.

  A single bulb burns overhead. It casts a yellow cone of light. The corners of the basement remain lost to shadow, but the light reveals a mildewed floor drain. Jam and pickle jars on a shelving unit. A tool bench faintly gleaming with hammers and nails and screws.

  “You’re thinking one thing,” he says. “But I’m telling you another. You’re wrong about me. I’m loyal. To you and to the community. I want what’s best for us all.”

  He sits in an old wooden chair. A rope around his chest is tied at the back of it, and his wrists are duct-taped to its arms. He keeps forgetting this, and when he talks, he tries to gesture, and the wood groans. “It’s not what it looks like. I wasn’t giving away information. I was gathering information. Information I was going to give you. Just let me prove it to you. Just tell me what to do, I’ll do it. Anything.” One of his lips is fat and scabbed and he licks at it now. “Anything you ask.”

  There is no response, no noise at all except for his panting and the click-click-click of heel-heavy steps orbiting him.

  “Anything at all,” he says. “Are you hearing me?”

  When she speaks, her voice is throaty, as if roughed up by cigarettes, close to a man’s. “Why’d you have to go and ruin my day?” Her pacing continues, a slow circle of him, never pausing. Click-click-click. A pipe moans. A centipede twists and vanishes into the dark.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice suddenly loud and desperate. A few tears spring from his eyes. “It’s the worst decision I ever made! I’d take it back if I could.”

  And then, near the tool bench, her heels pause their clicking. There is a scrape, the drag of something heavy. Slowly she steps into the light. “Today of all days.” Her wedding dress glows white. Strapless. Edged with satin. Breasted with lace. “I really don’t have time for this shit.”

  Her fingers—tipped with French-manicured nails—tighten around the grip of the baseball bat. She lifts it to her shoulder. When she swings, the fat diamond on her ring catches the light and sparkles.

  * * *

  The reception is held at the Frontier compound, forty acres of forested hillside overlooking the town. The house is more of a lodge, with log walls, vaulted ceilings, fieldstone detailing, and iron and copper hardware. Steel roofing. Geothermal heating. Twenty bedrooms, seven fireplaces, four decks, a theater, a wine cellar, a sauna, a library and gym and banquet hall. The original home—the one John grew up in—was massive by most standards, but it is now just one of several wings connected by glass pathways to the central structure. His old life, his old self, feels buried somewhere inside of this larger mansion that has grown over the top of it. And maybe he feels a little like that too. Given the uniform he wears. And the distance he’s traveled. And the time he’s been gone. And the control he’s affecting. He carries it all awkwardly, like bulky armor, like a castle on his back.

  Several outbuildings surround the home. One of them, a pole barn, is Nico’s studio. Throughout the house and throughout the grounds, his artwork is on display. A winding river of agates—red and yellow and orange and white, all harvested from the north shore of Superior—doubles as a path from the house to the pond. He meticulously laid the squares of concrete and nudged each stone into place. He also planted and trimmed the shrub labyrinth with topiary monsters in it. And from a dying pine, he carved and laminated what he calls the monolith, a tall totem with holes and alien designs etched onto it. Partygoers stroll past some of the installations now, making conversation around them.

  The driveway is lined with cars. The porch is festooned with ribbons and balloons in shades of purple, Talia’s favorite color. In the backyard, a sloped lawn bottoms out into the pond. People mill among the tables and tents and bars. A jazz combo plays on a stage and a few children leap and spin their bodies, but otherwise the dance floor is empty.

  On the gift table, there are many boxes wrapped with white paper and tied with silver ribbon. But most people make their way to the open cedar chest and drop in fat envelopes tucked with cash.

  Drones swirl overhead, compiling footage. Caterers dressed entirely in white wander among the guests offering trays holding champagne, bruschetta, bacon-wrapped dates, walleye Rangoon. Dinner should have already started, but no one can locate Talia.

  John shakes hands, says, “It’s good to see you, it’s good to see you.” Everyone keeps after him, asking, “Are you home to stay, Johnny?” and “Hard to believe what’s happened to our little town, isn’t it?” and “You’ve sure turned yourself around.”

  He corners Nico, says, “Should I be worried about you?” But his brother just looks at him with those will-o’-the-wisp eyes and says, “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve never felt better.”

  Before John can bother Nico further, Talia is beside him. She snakes an arm around John’s waist and smushes her lips against his cheek and says, “Long time, no see, baby brother.”

  John says congratulations and she says thank you and plucks a flute of champagne off a passing tray and downs it in one gulp and wipes her mouth clean with the back of her hand. John looks to Nico, but his brother is already gone, sn
eaking between the tables, headed back to the house with his head bowed.

  “Is he okay?” John says and Talia squints after their brother and says, “He tells me the metal inspires him. You should see some of the shit he’s making right now in the studio. Calls them his cosmic sculptures. Creepy.”

  “I heard something about him joining a cult?”

  Her big shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “You could call it that, I guess. Or you could call it reconnaissance.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “These metal-eaters, they’ve set up shop in a compound outside of town. Four hundred acres, all of it thick with omnimetal. They think it’s some kind of altar or some shit.”

  “Nico’s out there?”

  “He’s got his ear to the ground for me. We want that property. And we want to know what these freaks have planned.”

  “Don’t you worry he drank the Kool-Aid?”

  “Do we have to talk about this right now?”

  “It’s just that I hardly recognize him.”

  “You’re one to judge, you of all people. Nobody’d recognize you either, Johnny boy, in that army getup if you didn’t still have that ugly stain on your face.”

  “I’m just worried about him.”

  “Leave him be. You do your thing. He’ll do his. I’ll do mine. We’ll all be a lot happier.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “So now what?” his sister asks. “Dinner, right? During which time I’ll have to smile my way through who knows how many insufferable toasts.”

  “That’s how these things normally go. It’s been a beautiful day so far.”

  “Yeah,” she says distractedly and waves to someone across the yard. “Hey, I need to talk to you later, okay?”

  “About what?”

  “A few things.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “There’s a fight going on here. A fight for Northfall, guess you could say. You probably already got a sense of that. It’s like Deadwood downtown. It’s like the gold rush meets the oil rush meets the height of the steel boom in the Iron Range. It’s fucking bananas. Forget the Wild West. This is the Wild North.”