The Trials of Solomon Parker

by Eric Scott Fischl

  It’s just nerves, he tells himself. Few more seconds and it will be over. All Nancy has to do is walk out there, get hit a couple more times, and let himself give up. Drop to the floor and get counted out. Wasn’t nothing that could happen to fuck this up.

  “Time, gentlemen!” Pat O’Toole hollers. “Fighters!”

  Sol helps heave Nancy back to his feet.

  Wasn’t nothing that could happen. It’s just nerves.

  Sol and Billy watch Nancy’s fist swing in a big, looping, lazy arc. From where Billy stands, he sees it pass almost in slow motion, the hard, meaty mass hanging there at apogee for one long, dying moment before crashing back down, into the side of Nick Faraday’s skull.

  A baby dropped from a building, that one.

  Billy feels the impact in his chest again, his sternum vibrating with the aftershock like a deep drumbeat. Faraday’s eyes roll back in his head and he sways, out on his feet. Sol’s own eyes are wide and his lips, moving silently, Billy can easily read.

  No. No, no, no, no.

  Sean Harrity, across the room, mouth hanging open in disbelief.

  Nick Faraday, the victor, in the third round. As decided. Cash on the nail, obligations met. Due diligence.

  Not this.

  Nick Faraday, stumbling towards a fall. Nancy, wild-eyed and wheezing, standing there staring at his fist. The bet that was never a bet, falling away.

  Obligations.

  Oh, fuck.

  2.

  The bet lost, Maatakssi pressed his face into the dust and awaited his punishment. He could hear the singing of the once-crippled bird as it flew away. His belly was tight with fear, and with anger that the Above Ones had tricked him in this way.

  “Ha, Maatakssi,” the Above Ones said, “we have won the wager. Don’t you know not to gamble with those more powerful than you? Sometimes we wonder why we bothered to make you people. Although, the place where we live is sometimes dull, yes, so perhaps it had something to do with that. But you are fools, nonetheless.” In their pride, the Above Ones would not admit that they were a people who made mistakes like any others. Some of the old women say that humans were one of these mistakes, that the Above Ones had tried to create something better and failed, and that this is why our natures are as they are. Perhaps this too is why we are such sources of amusement to those gods.

  “Forgive me, Above Ones,” Maatakssi said.

  “You and your people are very foolish, Maatakssi,” the Above Ones continued, warming to their subject. “We, who have seen the making of all things, do not lose our gambles.”

  “Perhaps this is why the place in which you live is dull,” Maatakssi said, forgetting himself, for he was angry and his own pride was stung.

  “What is that you say, Maatakssi?” the Above Ones answered. They were troubled, for they themselves had thought this very thing. The worlds upon worlds that were given their shape by the games of those people were, at heart, merely the same flawed creation, over and over. Above all else, the Above Ones craved novelty.

  “A game is not a game if the result is certain, Great Ones,” Maatakssi said, sensing an advantage. The Above Ones were great, truly, but it was obvious that even with their strong medicine they were simple creatures. “Let me put this thing to you, mighty Above Ones. Let us wager again, what we have bet before: if you win, you will punish me as you see fit but, if I win, I will escape any penalty for killing my brother, Siinatssi.”

  “And how do you look to change the game, Maatakssi?” the Above Ones asked, trying to hide their excitement, because new things were truly rare for those people.

  “Mighty Above Ones, I ask you to release your power over this wager. We will look to my friend Raven, Omanaahstoo, to serve as judge, for we both know Raven to be a clever and honest being.” Maatakssi hid his smile, for he had a plan.

  The Above Ones talked among themselves for a few moments. They did know Raven, who was indeed an honest creature, if somewhat crotchety. The prospect of this new game made them excited, though, and also perhaps a bit foolish. But who are we to judge the gods?

  “Very well, Maatakssi,” they said. “We will call on Raven.”

  Just then, Raven arrived, out of breath, having seen, before, what was passing and making the long journey from his perch far away. “I am already here, Above Ones. What do you require of me?” he asked, hiding his unease behind a mask of irritability. “My wives are for once feeling lustful, and I would like to get back to them.”

  “We will have a game, Raven,” they said, “and Maatakssi here has recommended that you be the judge of it, as you are known to be honest and impartial in these things.”

  Raven doubted that this was his entire reputation, but he was worried and, in truth, did want to return to his lusty wives. But one does not balk the will of powerful beings. Still, he said, “Maatakssi, surely you have learned your lesson. One does not make bets with gods.”

  “The Above Ones have agreed to new rules, Raven,” Maatakssi said, trying to hide the smug feeling he held. “This game will be different.”

  Sometimes, there is no arguing with the foolishness of others. Raven knew that things would pass as they must, regardless of his own worry and concern. He was a very wise bird, Raven, seeing the world truly as he did. “Very well,” he said, sighing, pushing his fear away to another place. “What is the game?”

  “I have here in my hands the bones that Old Man gave me when I was a child,” Maatakssi said, showing them all the carved pieces in his palm. “We will play the dice game, where no man may cheat.”

  Raven inspected the bones, prodding them with his beak. They were warm and flat, but weighted properly. He was a great gambler himself and knew all the tricks. The dice were fair, and he pronounced them so.

  “Now you players will wager on these bones,” he said.

  The Above Ones went first, as was their right. Three times they threw the pieces, and made nearly perfect tosses, being gods. It was only an imperfection on the ground that fouled their final throw but, this time, they abided by the result, playing the game as fairly as they had promised.

  They passed the bones to Maatakssi, who stumbled over a root when taking them in his hand. As his did so, he substituted those bones for another set he had in his off hand, a shaved set that would always throw perfect.

  Raven, whose eyes missed nothing, saw this deception. Do not do this thing, two-leg walker, he thought to himself.

  Once, Maatakssi threw the bones, twice, perfect each time. On the third throw, he held his smile as he looked at the foolish Above Ones, and then made a final toss, as perfect as the others.

  “Above Ones,” Raven said, then, sighing in his heart, “you have been cheated. Look to the hand of Maatakssi, where you will find the original bones. These ones he has thrown have been shaved.”

  The Above Ones seethed in their wrath at Maatakssi’s treachery, and took him by the arms, readying a terrible punishment.

  “Raven, Raven, help me!” Maatakssi cried, weeping, as the Above Ones dragged him away. “I will make you the totem of my tribe, and reverence you above all animals! I will leave you the prime parts of my kills and never will you or your family go hungry. These words are my promise, if you will help me now!”

  “Foolish Maatakssi,” Raven said. He was a wise bird, as I have said, and far-seeing. “Do you think I would cross the Above Ones, who were witness to the creation of us all? The reverence of you two-leg walkers would be a pleasant thing, true, but your kind are thick upon the ground. There will be others with whom I will be friends and they will keep me and my family fed. One day soon, too soon, you will learn that words are nothing more than air.” He shook his head. “Now I must get back to my wives.” With a bow to the Above Ones, Omanaahstoo flew off, hoping that his wives were still feeling their lusts, with which he could distract himself from his worry.

  The Above Ones held prideful Maatakssi, the fool, and prepared to bestow their terrible punishment.

  “You have betrayed us, M
aatakssi,” they said. “We, who have shown you forbearance. This is how we are repaid. It was a simple thing we agreed to, and you have betrayed our trust. You, who are as nothing before us. For that, we will punish you but, first, as we have promised, we will give you a blessing.”

  Maatakssi shook and shivered, fearing the punishment to come. He shook so hard that the pouch that held the marked bones, the true ones, slipped from his neck and fell to the ground. The bones spilled out and he said, “Look there, Above Ones, look! That is my final throw. That one there. Not that other! It is a weak and wretched throw, suitable for one such as I. You, Great Ones, must certainly see that. I did not cheat you, Great Ones! You have won the bet! You said that the place you lived was dull. This, all of this, was only a thing to amuse you, O powerful Above Ones!”

  In his fear, Maatakssi tried to weave dung into something more and, sometimes, that is all a man can do when in the presence of his betters. We flawed men are nothing if not liars. That is the way of us, that is how we were made by the Above Ones.

  Those people looked at the throw on the ground, then, and talked among themselves. Maatakssi, sensing that his lies would bring his salvation, hid his smile, his fear forgotten, just like that. Fuck you, Above Ones, he thought to himself, full of pride at fooling the gods once again.

  Because we are liars, we men rarely learn from our mistakes.

  There can be no lesson without consequence.

  3.

  Fuck you, Sean, Sol thinks, scanning the crowd.

  He can see Sean Harrity off to one side of the mass of men, the ever-present lump of fat Mickey Doyle at his side. Nick Faraday is there, too, the side of his head an unwholesome-looking shade of mottled blues and yellows, the white of one eye still a hemorrhaged red. Faraday is an idiot and a piece of shit, but Sol has to give him credit for being far tougher than anyone had suspected, staying on his feet as he had. Nancy’s punch should have killed him. After the fight, Nick had slept for two whole days and it was anyone’s guess whether he’d ever wake up. Or, if he did, if he’d come out of it even stupider than he’d been before the fight. But now, here he is, at least together enough to stand there.

  “Fuckin tetched, Sol!” Sean had screamed, after the fight, spittle spraying Sol’s face. “Doc says that if that fuckin boy even wakes up, he’s probably going to wind up… what’d he say, Mickey?”

  “Simple, Sean.”

  “Fuckin simple!”

  “Well, Nick wasn’t so sharp to begin with, Sean,” Sol murmurs, before he can stop himself.

  “Are you getting fuckin smart, old man?” Sean leans forward, prodding one finger into Sol’s sternum. “Are you getting fuckin smart now?”

  Sol shakes his head, tries on an expression that he hopes combines respect and contrition into a tidy shape. Really, he doesn’t give a good goddamn if Faraday ever wakes up. The fool had done his part and, maybe, if he hadn’t punched Nancy’s own head all to rummy shit, confused him, Nancy wouldn’t have let loose the haymaker that had damn near stove in Faraday’s skull. It was only luck and – again, he has to give some credit – Faraday’s native toughness that allowed him to stay up long enough for the shaky, weak follow-up cross to Nancy’s jaw. Which the boy had fortunately taken as an invitation to drop, as ordered, in the goddamn third. Although, in retrospect, perhaps it’s merely the fact that Faraday hadn’t much in the way of brains in his head that kept him going for a few more seconds after being hit, that the muddling of same was less of a trauma than it would have been for a man with the full complement of wits to begin with.

  Regardless, Nancy took the cross and flopped theatrically to the canvas; Faraday stood there swaying on his feet for another couple of seconds, eyes rolled back in his head, before collapsing himself, a state of affairs that sent Pat O’Toole into a tizzy, suddenly having two men to count out. Sean and Sol made it clear in no uncertain terms that Nancy had hit the canvas first and so, by the rules, unconscious Nick Faraday, blood leaking from his ears, was hoisted upright and one bruised hand raised in victory.

  As a spectacle, it was sporting gold.

  One that Sol himself hadn’t taken the time to enjoy, realizing wisely that he was better served to get the hell out of there with his boys before Sean took exception to what could have been read as betrayal instead of simply drama, inadvertent though it had been. Sometimes the wise course is to make the best of a bad situation by fucking off and hoping one’s own inherent talent for bullshit will smooth things over later, which of course it had, yet again. A telling-off to endure, later, and some false regret that hid a hearty fuck you to Sean Harrity and that was that. That particular can kicked down the road one more time.

  Now, looking at Faraday, Sol wonders just how much addling poor Nick’s brains have taken, as he stands there by his boss with what seems to be more than the usual amount of blankness in his gaze. Although, with him, it’s hard to tell. Nancy himself had only needed a day or so to recover from the fight, battered though he was, and is now bruised and sore but hale. The boy wouldn’t be buying his own drinks any time soon, that was for goddamn certain.

  From the edge of the crowd, Sean catches Sol’s eye, gives him a sober nod. Sol isn’t entirely sure why the man is even here at the picket, but it makes him uneasy. Perhaps, like many men, Sean is simply drawn to the prospect of imminent violence, the feel of which hangs heavy in the air today like the crouching clouds of sulfur from the smelter stink-pots. So many men gathered into a close space: miners, ACM guards, the Pinkertons and, soon enough, scabs coming under escort to push their way through the picket in an effort to break this nascent strike.

  Nothing good is going to come of this, whatever Frank and Rob Quinn and the others think. Sol can feel it. Nothing. A series of minor fuckups and inconveniences that morning meant that Frank and the others arrived late. The speechmaking is behind schedule, which means this mass of men has been stood there too long with only their angry, nervous thoughts for company. The scabs would be arriving soon.

  Looking around, Sol has that sense again of his memory stuttering, that what he sees in front of him has somehow gotten out of phase with what he remembers, although there was no way he could even remember anything yet, because it hasn’t happened, has it? The thought is just to the outside of his mind, somewhere just out of reach; he tries to sidle up to it from an angle but, when he gets closer, it slips away. The memory, or whatever it is, is a confused series of things. Noise and dust and fear and violence. Hands, again, holding his own. Black empty eyes like pits, drawing him in.

  A raven sits atop a stack of timbers, watching him.

  “Think they’re coming, Sol.” Billy points with his chin towards the Anaconda road. Heads in the crowd turn, the men watch the dust kicked up by the trucks they know are full of the strike-breaking scabs, trucks escorted by Mariahs, no doubt packed to the gills with police. The miners watch the trucks and the guards on the other side of the picket watch the miners; the Pinkertons strewn throughout the crowd do their best to watch everything.

  This isn’t going to end well. Billy knows it, can feel it like he feels the pull of north. Like Sol, he has a pit of dread festering in his belly, which he doesn’t entirely understand but chalks up to good sense, or maybe just being out of sorts still. He feels sick, half-feverish, with pukey guts and watery bowels; since the night of the fight he’s gotten no better, merely holding the same. Billy has always been one of those lucky sorts blessed with a robust constitution, rarely ill but, finally, days of feeling like pounded shit finally sent him in search of a doctor, who merely told him to rest. Rest, and this from a doctor who catered to miners and should have known the impossibility of the order.

  Frank Little looks to be wrapping up his speech now, which is good, as Sol can see that he’s losing the audience to the distraction of the scab trucks coming up the hill with their police escort.

  “You see those men, boys,” Frank is saying, “with the goons the Company has with them. Now, we’re going to block their path,
calmly and without violence. Calmly and without violence. Don’t even call them names, if you can. You just say not today, brother. Repeat that now.”

  The silence is ominous until, finally, someone cries out: “They’re here to take our fuckin jobs, Frank!” The shout is picked up by other men, again and again, until Frank is barely able to quiet the men down enough to hear his reply.

  “Those boys are scared, men! They are scared and weak but they are our brother workers, even if they don’t –” Whatever he’s going to say next is lost in an outburst of jeering and curses.

  – “Fuck them!”

  – “My family needs to eat too!”

  Sol nudges Billy. “This is going to get bad,” he says, watching a man in the crowd brandish a length of rebar he’s pulled from somewhere.

  “Yeah, we should get out of here, Sol,” Billy replies, looking uneasily at the mine guards on the other side of the picket, nervously passing their rifles from hand to hand. “We should go.”

  Sol looks around, tries to get an eyeball on all his boys, make sure they’re still together. Billy is right, they need to get out of here. Not just them, though: everyone. Things are going to kick off. The mood is ugly and whatever Frank thinks he’s going to accomplish here isn’t going to work. The ACM doesn’t have enough scabs to keep production going to the levels they need for the war in Europe; not skilled men, anyway. Maybe the workers don’t need to shut down production entirely, he thinks. Maybe instead just slow it down enough for the Company to feel the pinch. He’s no organizer, though. Frank knows what they should be doing; maybe he’s right but, right now, Sol can feel that something very bad is about to happen.

  “Sol! Sol, get on up here!” Frank is shouting at him now, waving an arm, inviting Sol up on the back of the pickup. He remembers that he’s supposed to speak, to talk about the men lost at the Penn. Talk about Owen. He hadn’t wanted to do it, not at all, but somehow Frank and Quinn convinced him. He’s no speechmaker. Looking out over the angry crowd, he wonders just what the fuck he’ll even say. These men don’t care about the dead, not right now anyway. They have one thing on their minds, and that’s breaking the heads of the men coming to take away their jobs, coming to take food out of the mouths of their families.