The Everywhere Doors

by Brad Ashlock

  “Maybe. There are ways to get to where you want to go through the doors, even without a key. There are parallels between the worlds. It can be done. You’ll have to travel blind, too. Use your nose.”

  “Always knows.”

  “I think the old man is getting outside help. He must be stopped. He’s after The Presence’s new toy. Now go!”

  The dog gave its felled brothers a final glance before bolting back into the factory, its red eyes aglow, its mouth frothy, its golden cross swinging like Poe’s pendulum on a delicate chain around its burly neck.

  * * *

  The place is Sweet Blossom, Arkansas; the year is 1857. There’s a cool breeze rushing down from the north. It blows through the trees and transforms the cotton fields into a sea of white and brown. It’s almost noon. The sun is like a blister on the flesh of the sky; clouds seems to lance it and heat bleeds down upon the heads of the slaves in the distant fields. They offer gospel songs to the fevered air as they peel the seedy white cotton from the spiky brown pods and toss it into their burlap sacks. The slaves shine like wet marble. Back in town, farmers pull wagons up to the feed store while a woman in a floral printed dress exits the general store, and a boy, parcel in hand, runs past the saloon toward a postman on a pony. The place is Sweet Blossom, Arkansas, and today, July 20, 1857, two strangers have arrived.

  Cal spots the water pump between the general store and a horse corral. He and Naumkin have walked all night and all morning. Too exhausted to speak, Cal points to the pump; Naumkin nods and wipes his face with a handkerchief. Cal pumps the metal handle up and down, and in a few seconds, cold water gushes from the spout. Naumkin fills his cupped hands, splashes his face, then kneels down and drinks directly from the tap. The metal of the pump is cold and the water is cold, and that northerly wind is cold, too. They switch and Cal takes his turn; the water is clean and sweet.

  I still don’t think we should have left the farmer’s house,” Cal says.

  “He wanted us to go. What did you want me to do, shoot him?”

  Cal shrugs.

  “Anyway, we’re not trying to get home. Not yet.”

  “Meeko Russell, yeah, I know. I don’t think she’s here in Shitsville, Arkansas.”

  “Sweet Blossom.”

  “What?”

  Naumkin motions Cal to look about the buildings; most of the stores have Sweet Blossom somewhere in their names: Sweet Blossom General Stores, Sweet Blossom Tack and Feed, Sweet Blossom Saloon. “Let’s go in there,” Cal says and points to the bar.

  “We have no money. Our currency won’t be printed for another hundred and forty years.”

  Cal leans against the pump, sits in the cool mud, and mumbles something about credit cards.

  “We’ve got to find where the door went,” Naumkin says

  “Yeah? And where will it dump us next? Exoctic Canada, 1987?”

  “I don’t know. But the medicine man wouldn’t send us on a wild goose chase.”

  “Medicine man?” Cal cracks, getting to his feet. “It was a dream. For all you know, the medicine man could have been that damn albino in disguise. Probably lured us to that door so we’d get totally off track.”

  Naumkin looks away from Cal and sighs. “We have to have faith.

  A man with a craggy red face and a cowboy hat rides past Naumkin and Cal on a brown horse. He pulls on the reins, bringing the animal to a halt, and then stares at the debating wanderers. “Lord A’might,” the man spits, looking Cal up and down and then across to Naumkin’s six-shooters.

  Cal’s hands grope at the nunchakus swung round his neck, his fingers dancing across the two rods connected by a chain as if he were practicing piano scales again.

  “I’m Tigran. This is my student, Cal.”

  “Y’all ain’t around from here,” the stranger says.

  “We’re not,” Naumkin replies “We’re looking for a little work. We’re very hungry.”

  “And tired,” Cal adds.

  “Why are you dressed like that? Some kind of actor or somthin’?”

  “We’re chess players,” Cal says.

  The man spits tobacco juice and squints into the sun. He smiles and looks back down at the chess players. “Well, I don’t know about chess playin’, but I do know they’re lookin’ for some extra hands down on the Duncan Ranch.” The horse stomps the ground and the name.

  “Duncan?” Naumkin asks.

  “Yeah. Sam Duncan. That’s the name you’ll want to remember in these here parts.”

  “I know that name,” Naumkin says, nodding. He looks up to the man on the horse. “Where’s the ranch?”

  The stranger points down the road. “Just head east and you’ll come to it. Ten miles, pert near.”

  Naumkin thanks the man who tips his hat and rides off.

  “Why’d you tell him you knew the name Sam Duncan?”

  “It’s not important, “ Naumkin says. Sam Duncan had been the villain in the novel Warpath who was trying to usurp the Indians’ land in the fictitious Coyote, Arkansas.

  What was real now? What was fiction? Naumkin looked down to the revolvers plugged into their worn holsters at his hips, at the leather boots on his feet, and then to his own rope-burned hands. He was a walking Louis L’Amour cliché, but maybe that was all right. Maybe his clothes and his newly prairie-hardened features were just part of the genre, unimportant details, a mannerism. Maybe all that meant anything was that he was trying to save a little girl from the evil dragon. It didn’t matter if he tried with a sword, a pistol, or his bare hands. All that mattered was the attempt. Didn’t Joseph Campbell say something about that? All the stories in the world were really just one story, with just one hero with different faces? How did the old Greek heroes get through the maze to face the Minotaur? They followed tenuous threads, unspooled yarn to know which doors of the labyrinth they had already gone through. Maybe the novel Warpath was a kind of yarn to follow.

  Naumkin and Cal rested for an hour, drank some more water, and then headed eastward. The road, after only a couple miles, dwindled to a narrow path that cut through deep woods and hills. With their new bodies, the ten-mile journey, despite the sun, felt like a walk around the block. Soon, the woods became a grassy field interrupted with vertebra-like posts strung with twisted coils of rusty razor wire. The smell of manure was pungent. Naumkin and Cal climbed a rise and looked down into a valley where a large compound of stables and cabins encircled a ranch house.

  “I think we have to go here, Cal. I think it will lead to the door. Sam Duncan was one of the characters in that western I read, the one with all the clues.”

  “Warpath?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of character was Sam Duncan?”

  Naumkin pursed his lips. “The bad guy.”

  Cal nodded and they proceeded down into the valley. The wind died. They could hear dogs yap in the distance behind the buildings as they approached the cluster of cabins. Naumkin and Cal looked through the windows into the ramshackle bungalows. Inside, dirty dishes were stacked up on the tables, dirty long johns were jumbled in the corners, and a dirty smell hung in the air: human sweat, burnt coffee, and horseshit.

  “Can I help you?” a delicate voice chirped from behind Naumkin and Cal.

  They spun around and faced the girl who had crept up on them. She was small with a hard face. A lock of blond hair, free from its bun, danced at her hairline. She wore a white summer dress with a polka-dot pattern, which looked funny above her tan cowboy boots. She appeared to be about fifteen-years old.

  “Excuse me,” Naumkin said, backing away from the cabin, “but we heard this ranch was in need of a couple extra hands?”

  “What’s he supposed to be?” she asked, studying Cal.

  “I need a new outfit,” Cal mumbled.

  “We’re not from around her,” Naumkin said.

  The girl smiled. Maybe in a hundred years she might have said no shit Sherlock, but now she just said, “I’ll take you to my daddy. I’m Katie.�
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  Naumkin and Cal introduced themselves and followed the girl between the cabins to the big ranch house. “Wait here, I’ll go get him,” she said, went into the house, and shouted for her father.

  Moments later, the wooden door to the ranch house creaked ajar. Sam Duncan introduced himself. He was in his early fifties, broad shoulders, with a potbelly, but he wasn’t blubbery; there was muscle beneath that layer of fat. He moved toward Naumkin and Cal gracefully, extending a big hand and flashing a dingy smile.

  “We’re looking for a little work,” Naumkin said.

  Duncan looked to Cal doubtfully.

  “I’m from Michigan,” Cal said.

  “I’m originally from Russia.”

  “You’re both a long way from home,” Duncan said, his voice smooth and sweet as maple syrup. “Russia. That sure is something. And looking for work?”

  “Yes we are, sir,” Cal said.

  “Now, what’s that around your neck?”

  Cal squeezed the nanchaku sticks and smiled. “Just a toy.”

  “You know where hillbillies come from?” he asked Cal.

  “Hillbillies?”

  “Hillbillies come from Michigan.”

  Cal, not knowing what to say, laughed and looked to his chess teacher.

  “I’m just giving you a hard time, son. Let me tell you what I want. I just bought a few acres from my neighbor, and I need fencing built around it. I need somebody to dig the holes, haul the posts up there, and put the new fence up. Then we gotta take the old fence down. I figure it should take you a couple days, maybe three. I got all my boys getting ready to take part of our herd down to Texas, so it’d be great if you could help me out. Why don’t we say, oh… I’ll give you each five dollars if you can get it done in three days. Plus three meals a day, and you can stay in the workers’ quarters. How’s that sound?”

  “Five dollars?” Cal moaned.

  “Five dollars if very generous, Mr. Duncan.”

  “Katie was just about to make some lunch. Why don’t you join us?” Duncan asked and invited them in.

  The house was surprisingly cool. It was surprisingly dark as well, especially for Naumkin and Cal whose pupils had narrowed to pin pricks from the Arkansas noon. Half blind, they followed Duncan down the creaking hall, through a large living area to the dining room. Duncan had his daughter set two more plates, and she served them biscuits and gravy.

  “So what brings you all the way from Russia to Arkansas?” Duncan asked while sopping up gravy with his bread.

  “Uh, here you can find work. People starving in Russia.”

  “How long have you been here?” Katie asked.

  “In Arkansas?” Naumkin said after taking a sip of fresh milk.

  “No, in America,” Katie clarified.

  “Oh, about thirty years.”

  Call nudged the chess master.

  “I mean, uh, about ten years.”

  Duncan asked how Naumkin and Cal met.

  “It’s a long story,” Cal said.

  “Yes, I went to Michigan looking for work. Cal was in the same boat. We got along, so we decided to hobo across the country.”

  “Well, times are hard in this country. It’s good to have friends,” Duncan said. He sopped up another biscuit.

  “So, Cal, what do you think of all those people in the North wanting to free niggers?”

  “Uh…”

  “You seem like a nice boy,” Duncan said as gravy dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He armed it off and asked Cal for his thoughts on the slavery issue.

  Cal opened his mouth, but Naumkin reached under the table, grasped his knee, and said, “We don’t think the North should interfere with the South.”

  “That’s good, Tigran. That’s good to hear, because, as I said, this country is going through some hard times, and you’ve got to know who your friends are.”

  “Daddy, not at the table!”

  Duncan laughed. “She’s just like her momma was. Never liked to talk politics during a meal. You’re right sweetheart. Why don’t you serve these gentlemen some of that rhubarb pie you made yesterday? It sure was tasty.”

  Katie left the table. Duncan leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. There was something in the luxuriant pose that reminded Naumkin of Gordon Dudley in front of his jellyfish. “I don’t have slaves, but my neighbors do, boys. I know those men. They’ve worked hard. They’ve had those plantations for a couple generations now. There’s a system in place here, you understand?”

  “Yes,” Naumkin said. “Traditions.”

  “Traditions and,” Duncan leaned forward now, “business! Not to mention common sense. You let those niggers loose, they won’t know what to do with themselves. They like it here. Things are good here in Arkansas for the slave. They do a hard day’s work and get to keep their families together, get three meals a day, and a roof over their heads. That’s a hell of a lot more than they’d have back in Africa, I can tell you that. Get et by a goddamn lion.”

  Katie returned with the rhubarb pie. They finished it off, and then Duncan brought Naumkin and Cal outside to his stables.

  “This here’s Goldie,” Duncan said, slapping the horse’s haunch. “And over there is Mystic. Shadow must be out in the pasture.”

  Duncan mounted Goldie while Naumkin and Cal hopped up on Mystic. They followed Duncan bareback through the pasture several acres to a fence. They rode along the fence line until coming to a gate. Duncan opened it and they continued on to an area of tall grass. This, Duncan explained, was where the holes for the new fence needed to be dug. He showed Naumkin and Cal where the new fence would joint the old fence, and the general property line that the holes had to be plotted along.

  They then rode back to the stables, dismounted, and Duncan showed them the fence posts piled in a nearby barn. After digging the holes, they were to load up a wagon and put the posts in the holes. This whole process, as Duncan figured it, should take them two days. On the third day, they’d stretch the barbed wire across the poles, and they then could collect their pay after tearing down the old fence; they wouldn’t have to clean any of that up, Duncan would deal with that later. Duncan gave Naumkin and Cal two post-hole diggers, some work gloves, and a shovel. They thanked the rancher and, tools in hand, hiked the few acres to where the fence would be erected, sighted the line best they could, and began to dig.

  Naumkin looked to Cal as he sank the post-hole digger into the earth. “You know I didn’t mean what I said to Duncan, you know, about the blacks.”

  “It’s OK. I understand. I just hope we’re not wasting our time ditch-digging when we could be trying to find the door out of this world.”

  “It’s uncanny, isn’t it? Something in his posture, the way he carries himself.”

  “Who?”

  “Sam Duncan. He’s like Gordon Dudley.”

  “A little bit.”

  “It makes me wonder if there aren’t other parallels.”

  Cal looked up from the hole he had dug and asked the chess master to clarify.

  “Well, maybe worlds that are connected have similarities. I mean,” Naumkin said, wiping his brow, “if there are similar people maybe there are similar places.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “In the pines where the river dies. Maybe there’s a river here, too, or maybe it’s a dead end road in this version, or something like that, and maybe it’s not pines, maybe it’s uh, scrub grass. Maybe in a place that corresponds to our world, like this place’s version of the chocolate factory, there’s another magic door waiting for us. Maybe the one that leads to Meeko Russell.

  “Maybe tonight you’ll just dream of that Indian again and he can explain everything for us.”

  “In the last dream he had said he wouldn’t be able to help us here, only point us in the right direction. I think it all goes back to that book, Warpath. It’s like our bible.”

  They worked for about four hours until Katie Duncan rode up to them on Goldie. Katie had
a large water-skin and a basket with some biscuits wrapped in a checkered napkin. Naumkin and Cal thanked her while they sat in the shade beneath a tree, passing the water-skin back and forth and devouring the biscuits. Their hands were blistered and their arms now felt like lead. They had worked hard; over half of the holes they needed had been dug. The fire ants were the major annoyance. It seemed that every three holes or so Naumkin or Cal (usually Cal) would plunge a post-hole digger into one of the ant tunnels. The earth would erupt with the red little devils; they seemed to have a preternatural ability to find exposed ankles.

  Katie told them supper would be ready around sundown and to head back to the ranch then. She rode off and Naumkin and Cal picked up their tools again and went to battle the clay and its ferocious six-legged denizens. They ran out of water just before sunset, finished one more hole, and then hobbled back toward the ranch. There were still about a dozen holes to be dug tomorrow, so they left the tools behind. They were exhausted and it was a long trek back. When they finally staggered to the ranch house, they saw that the other hands had arrived from whatever preparations they had been making for the Texas drive.