The Bully of Order (19 page)

“I apologized, Benjamin. You can't stay mad at me. I'm not as quick as you fellers. You know I've got the mental problems. Deficits, the doc calls them, since my accident.”

“Don't blame injury for your condition,” Ben said.

“What else but an apology can I offer?”

“Cut off your head and give it to me.”

“Benjamin, please.”

“It'll be a good beginning.”

“He's still with us, Ben,” I said.

“I wasn't there when that was decided.”

“You were,” said his brother. “Sometimes you like the man, admit it.”

“Fuck I will.”

“C'mon, Benjamin,” Telfer said. “I'll make it up to you.”

“Not to me you won't.”

“To the band, then. I'll lift a case of the finest stuff I can find, and I'll tie ribbons and bows to it and get on my knees and beg that they forgive me.”

“You are a fuckin beggar, slint.”

“I am. I'm a humble devotee to the brave musicians of the Harbor.” He whistled a little tune and danced as if with a partner, a woman. He wasn't unlikable. “Benjamin, I mean it, I'm sorry. I didn't think.”

“Don't make this out to be some little thing, like I'm razzin you.”

“I'm not. I swear.”

“Say amen.”

“Amen.”

“He fuckin swears it,” Joseph said.

“You stay out of my way tonight, or you'll be floating facedown by morning.” There was a pause because he was serious, Ben was deadly serious, and Telfer was scared.

“Like slintin gabby women,” I said, and after a moment the tension finally broke and we laughed, even Ben.

Later, in the darkness of the alley, we waited, motionless against the wall. The piano music grew louder as we stayed quiet. The lights of the upstairs windows died high on the wall above us, and I felt small beneath them. Telfer climbed up the drainpipe and watched the windows for naked women, but we knew better; it was the lights of the hallway and nothing ever passed them but shadows. We'd spent enough time in the alley to know. Bellhouse told the McCandlisses that drunks are like wounded animals, they go downhill towards water, and their shame always washes them out the back door.

I didn't have to hit our first customer, but I did, and it sounded ringy, like dry wood hitting dry wood. Down he went. Pockets emptied. Telfer tried to take his shoes, but Ben punted him in the ass and sent him limping off back against the wall. Joseph and I hefted the limber mess and stashed him behind a pile of broken chairs and covered him with a tarp. If he woke up, we'd help him and reassure him that it hadn't been us that'd robbed him but some big hairy bearded fuckers instead. No one wanted to believe they'd been undone by what appeared to be a few boys—only Joseph was man-size—and a tiny half-wit; they just couldn't face it.

The second man fought back briefly, but he ended up on the ground with four sets of boots coming down. Breathing heavy, we dragged him over and stacked him on top of the first, covered him with the tarp. It quit raining for a minute or two and then it cracked and really started to pour. The wind came up. Telfer wanted to leave, so Joseph gave him three dollars and sent him packing. As soon as he left, four men came out at once and Joseph said, Ben, but Ben was already swinging. I joined in and Joseph too and it ended with a broken board beating on bloody heads and two got away but we cleaned out the others and that was enough for the night.

Joseph went and found Bellhouse and paid him his half. Ben bought a bottle from Teddy Ponto out of his wagon and tried to get me to join him, but I was all set, shaky. All done. Moving on to better things. The whistle sounded at the mill, announcing another shift change. Seventeen dollars apiece wasn't bad.

“We'll find you,” Joseph said.

“Stay and have one with us at least.”

“Next time.”

“You've got girly brain.” Ben laughed. “I wish you'd get whiskied and spill out the details. You can give us one, can't you?”

“Good night, Duncan.”

“Joseph. Good night, Ben.”

“Good night. Fuckin good fuckin night.”

I left them standing bloody and bruised, the bottle going left and right, up and down, making the H, and walked stiffly up the hill. That was nearly a bad fight. Can't get beat, or Bellhouse will pull us and get new help. Big men, though, and not so drunk at all. I half wondered if maybe Bellhouse had sent them out to test us. It'd gone all right if he had. We'd mostly won. Ben finished it with that busted board, a wet, broken rafter tail, had a bird's mouth cut in it. I'd wrestled with Ben a few times before but never fought him and hoped I never had to. He was working on getting under my skin, but I wouldn't have it. Nope, peaceful man, sweet lover. Me and my salvation. Out of town, my legs carried me. Money in my pocket.

I slept through most of the morning and didn't stir. Matius was off on splashdam errands and Jonas was staying in the bunkhouse, so I had the place to myself. There were chores, but I wasn't doing them. Matius could chuck it, for all I cared. I got up for the relief but was too sore from the fight to be about yet, so I went back to sleep. I'd been waiting all week for this day, though, and by noon I was on the move.

I snuck by Zeb's place as was the usual course. I'd been banished from the Parkers', and for good reason. Big Edna was in the garden, but thankfully she didn't see me. I missed visiting with Edna and Lewis, saying hello. They took me in when Mother died, and for a time Zeb was my best friend and we thought of each other like brothers. But it ended with a busted ax handle stabbed into the rotten heart of a spruce stump, jacked up and down, and Zeb, laughing like his guts were falling out his ass, said: “It's how they reproduce.”

On our way home from school we'd relieved a drunken Mox Chuck fisherman of his tackle and the remains of his bottle. We were sprung. Zeb's red hair was bracted to his skull, his hat was in the weeds where it'd fell off when he hurled up a swig. Up and down, with the ax handle, like he was pumping water. His eyes were outpaced by his bobbling head. I called him tree fucker, laughed, called him rapist. “She didn't ask for it. Or he. Is it a he, Zeb?”

Zeb's face froze, mouth open, wet salamander eyes. “Yer own daddy's a dang murderer, and you call me names? I don't care if it's a joke, you don't call me that. I ain't no lowdown bastard, no slinkin Ellstrom.”

We'd only spoken of my father once before. Two Christmases back I'd spent the holiday with Jonas and Uncle Matius until Matius took the hide off my back with a twist of wire for leaving the chickens out and letting a fox zero his flock. Zeb found me walking the road afterward and stayed with me even when I tried to run him off because I was embarrassed by my tears. We walked way upriver through the snow, farther than either of us had ever been, and found a narrow canyon and climbed up, and from high on the cliffs we discovered a man below us panning for gold. We snuck easily by him and went another quarter mile upstream and rolled boulders from the canyon walls into the water. The water was muddied and we followed the flowing cloud downstream, and when it got to the gold panner he stopped and looked around, nervous like because he didn't know what had caused the disturbance. We never let him see us and walked home, the last stretch in the dark.

When we got to Matius's we stood in the road, shoulder to shoulder. There were lights burning, but I didn't want to go in. Zeb put his arm around me and told me I should come back and stay with him, where I belonged, but I was getting tired of all that. Didn't like the sweetness, tasted like lies, and I had to face Matius anyway, or he'd know he'd more than whipped me. He'd think he'd won.

“He don't matter,” Zeb said that day. “Yer just you, and he's him. He ain't anybody.”

“I know that.”

“Well, I thought I should tell you anyhow. Yer yer own, and yer uncle is a son of a bitch.”

He waited until I made it to the door, and then he owl-hooted and I hooted back. We were pals after all.

But it wasn't long before I forgot about his kindess. I started staying away from the Parker house sometimes, slept in the woods or in Matius's barn, even though he didn't like me around, and if Jonas wasn't there to stop him, he'd run me off. Edna Parker and Dr. Haslett both raised a fit when I went missing, but that faded the more me and Zeb bickered and brawled. I hated how he would clam up if I mentioned Teresa, and if I went to meet her he'd get a sour look on his face, like I'd put a hair in his food. And when I asked Teresa about him, she said she'd never said two words to him in her whole life. So he'd lied like the others, like I knew he had. There he was with parents while me and the McCandlisses got ours ripped. He was safe on the plain while we were wallowing in the bitumen. He had no right to fuss with me.

So I said to him that day: “My father is a killer, Zeb, and it bears to reason that I might be a killer too, if by nothing else but bloodline.” I paused to let this settle in. “And if you keep talking like that, we might discover my birthright. I'll bash you and wait three days for you to die.” It truly did hurt me more to say this than it did for him to hear it.

“But we're friends, aren't we?” Zeb said.

“I don't know about that.”

“I didn't mean nothin.”

“Didn't you?”

“I don't like being called names, is all. Yer not mad at me?”

“I am mad.”

“Oh, but I didn't mean it. You know that. I was just talkin. I got carried away. I'm sorry, Duncan. I truly am.”

We left it at that, but he carried the ax handle with him, wouldn't let it fall, and if I'd gone for him he'd have hit me. Brained me like a rabbit.

We wandered off to one of our fishing holes and used the stolen tackle to rig up a pole. I tied up the rig nice and handed it to Zeb and he thanked me, smiled, and I smiled back, like we were friends again. But when he turned, I lunged at him and buried a rusty fishhook under his jawbone below his ear and then ran him off the bank into the river. It's deep there, and Zeb was gone for a second and I thought I might've drowned him when I meant to hurt him but he bobbed to the surface with one hand clamped on his jaw while the rest of him kicked and swam. I didn't wait for him to make it up the bank. I felt sick for what I'd done. It was a No. 17 Mustad with a barb and would hurt like hell to get free. I'd felt it hit bone when I stuck him. After that I wasn't welcome at the Parkers' and stayed well clear, and following several skirmishes with Matius I moved in permanent with him and Jonas. Dr. Haslett tried a couple times to get me back with the Parkers, but I wouldn't have it, and if I had to guess, neither would they.

Later, Jonas told me that he'd heard Zeb couldn't get the hook out by himself and he'd walked all the way home and had his mother cut it out. He has a scar now. Makes me sad to think about it, but what's a scar without a story.

I kept to the high ground and avoided the river, even though the going would be easier. I liked the ridges and didn't want to bump into anyone at the water. I wanted to hurry, but I made myself go slow because I didn't want to be the first one there. The forest is a cathedral, and when you're alone there you're close to God. Time is a gull heart, trapped in a stupid bird, so it runs, knowing no other way.

At the edge of town the roadmen were cutting away the hillside. A boy brought them water and they stopped and drank. They beat their shovels against rocks and logs to get the mud free and went back to work. I watched them for a while and then walked on.

The rooftops were steaming in the afternoon sun. There'd been lightning earlier. I half remembered the sound of thunder dragging me from sleep. I watched the drawbridge open and a tug slip by. The sun glinted on the steel of the bridge.

Teresa was waiting in the church shed, like we'd planned. Her hair was up, and she had her coat pulled high to her chin because of the chill. She looked lovely with the color in her cheeks, her black eyebrows and hair, scar on her lip like a grasshopper's leg. She smiled, and her little teeth made me smile.

She touched my face. “You're all beat up again.”

“Scratches.”

I sat down next to her and kissed her cheek.

“You're sure that Reverend Macklin won't find us?”

“He's making his rounds all day. We won't be bothered.” I hitched up my pant leg and set to unlacing my boots.

“If we won't be bothered, then we don't need to rush.”

“Course not.” I finished taking off my boots anyway and was embarrassed at the holes in my socks and the smell, so I stacked the left foot on the right to try and cover it.

“Father caught Oliver sneaking out of the house with one of his pistols, a big silver one he brought back from Wyoming.”

“Where was he going?”

“He said out for some air, but Father wanted to know why he took the gun, not where he was off to. He said he needed protection. He'd been bullied. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?”

“I haven't seen him in months.”

“What about your friends?”

“They don't mess with him.” I looked at her finger and thought of putting a ring on it.

“I think they do. I think that Ben McCandliss torments him.”

“Nah.”

“Yes, he does. He does it because of me.”

I suddenly wanted my boots back on my feet. “Let's not talk about this.”

“Fine.”

I touched her hand, caressed a knuckle wrinkle. “I bet it'd be easier to aim with one eye. He's probably a hell of a shot.”

She leaned against me and lifted my bruised hand into her lap. “I worry he's getting mean.”

“Someone told me he has a girlfriend.”

“That's what he told my father, but I don't believe him.”

“I heard she's older.”

“She'd have to be scheming, don't you think? Have some plan to get something from him by way of my father.”