The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  “I’m sorry, Duncan. I’m truly sorry. I made her a promise, and I didn’t keep it. You aren’t my son, and it hurt me to see you because you remind me of her.”

  “What was the promise?”

  “You were supposed to live with the Parkers.”

  I looked down at my hands, shaking in my lap.

  “I was supposed to keep you safe,” Haslett said.

  “This is safe, is it?”

  “Men have to be accountable for their lives.”

  I couldn’t speak. I shoved the letters inside my coat and took a box of matches from the table and a cigar, and I left.

  I stood outside the tent city and watched the shadows and then went and checked the alleys for the McCandlisses. No one was about. No Bellhouse. No Tartan. All was quiet. A safe night, and no one knew it.

  I wandered up the hill and left the burn, and the noise began to fade. I climbed a low fence into a vacant lot and waded out among the debris of what used to be the Slade Hotel. The back wall was still standing, and behind it a section of stairway led up to a kind of observation deck built between two massive fir trees, both dead and twisted and charred.

  From the veranda I could see all the way to Boyerton’s mill and survey the comings and goings of the men on the Line. They reeled in and out of the streetlights like they were attached to cables, tiny donkey engines dragging them along. Women and men and men and men went arm-in-arm down the muddy and planked streets, pressing shoulders together to keep from falling.

  The water in the harbor held the lights of the town like a slow river holds stones. I was filled with a deep untethered feeling, wild in all my muscles and veins. Maybe I didn’t want to do anything, but I had to. I had no choice.

  I climbed into one of the trees to have a better look around. The snow fell away, and wet ash blackened my hands. Below me the town was a jumble of watery lights and crooked shadows. Tegumental snow, the body’s protector. Smoke poured from chimneys and hung low in the air. The mud in the side streets was shiny and dimpled-looking. The wind came off the harbor, and I climbed higher and perched on a limb like an owl.

  A procession of wagons and men on horseback and on foot was coming down the hill. They passed directly below, and I could see Charlie Boyerton riding at the front on his fine black horse. Out on some nocturnal business at the mill. The ships in the harbor told the story. There were only three independent mills left, and soon Boyerton would own all of them. I watched as the procession went on and toured right through the heart of town to the mill. The gates were opened, and the lights burning overhead illuminated each man as they passed.

  I dropped from my perch and got out of the wind beside the tree and struck a match and puffed the cigar to life and let the acrid smoke trickle from my nose and mouth. I opened the first letter, dated December 15; it began: “Dear Milo, I’ve made it safely to New York.” The match burned my finger, and I dropped it. I lit another and read on.

  I have found work in the Bath Veteran’s Home and am supporting myself. My brother Zachary knows that I am here, but no one else in my family has any idea. You can write to me at this address. Please send news of Duncan as soon as you can.

  I crumpled the letter and threw it as far as I could, and the wind caught it and it landed in the street. I struck another match.

  Dear Milo, Thank you for keeping an eye on Duncan. I want him to go to school and leave the Harbor as soon as he’s old enough. I’ve enclosed money for him so you can start a fund. Will you do this for me? I am humbled daily by what I see at the hospital. What I ran from, they would kill for, and most of them have. Please write soon.

  Wadded up and thrown into the street, another match.

  Dear Milo, I’m sorry to hear that the money I sent was stolen from the envelope. I don’t know what else to do. Has Jacob returned yet? You said you see Duncan in the streets, doing what? Why isn’t he in school? What about the Parkers? Aren’t they watching him still? I’m not accusing you of neglect. I just need to know.

  Torn and wadded and thrown. She needed to know. My thumb was blistered, and I only had two more matches. I couldn’t read any more. There was something so evil and cold about her leaving me, but all I wanted was to see her. I ground the cigar out beneath my boot heel. The wind blew out the next match, and the one after. I sat in the moonless dark and waited for daylight and imagined my mother bathing invalid soldiers in a place called Bath, and why wouldn’t it be.

  Not much later, the mill gates opened, and Boyerton came out alone and rode up the hill. I waited, not even breathing, terrified. I hoped he’d stop somewhere or turn off and not pass by but he always appeared again, rounding corners, drawn to me. Then he was there, and under a streetlamp I could see his face, weary and pale. He kept riding, and when he saw the letters in the mud he pulled up his horse and dismounted. He flattened one against the flank of his horse and then struck a light and read it. I thought his night business at the mill could’ve been about me. He could’ve been getting men together to bring me in. I had the pistol out, and I stood up and walked toward him.

  “That’s mine,” I said.

  He turned stiffly and dropped the lit match in the street. “Who’s up there?”

  “That’s my letter.”

  “It’s you. Get down here and let me see your face.”

  I went slowly down the stairs. I cocked the pistol and slipped it into my coat pocket. A dog barked in the distance, and a breeze picked up. I took off my hat.

  “You’re coming with me,” Boyerton said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  He held up the letter. “From your mother?”

  I nodded, replaced my hat.

  “You come with me, and I’ll see you’re not harmed.”

  “Where are we goin?”

  “To see the judge. You need to be punished for what you’ve done to my daughter.”

  “I’ve already been punished. Been punished my whole life.”

  “I don’t like excuses, never have.” He handed me the muddy letter. “Follow me.” He turned his horse around and mounted up. “Don’t run away. Be a man about this, and it won’t be half as bad. Come on.”

  “I’m not running.”

  I waited until his back was facing me; it was an easy shot, less than ten yards. Not meaning to but doing it anyway, I took aim and unbelievably squeezed the trigger and the richest man in the Harbor pitched forward in his saddle. The horse ran forward and then bolted away from the gaslight, and Boyerton fell into the mud. I checked the street and the windows for movement and then went and gave Boyerton a nudge with my boot. His throat gaped where the bullet had exited, and there was blood and bone and sinew. He was dead. I squatted there, looking into his face. The gaslight gleamed watery in his dead eyes. There was no mistaking what life was, and where it hid. Wonderful death filled his gaze, utterly nothing. I set the gun down on his chest so it wouldn’t get muddy and touched my fingers to the warm blood of the death wound. I was amazed at myself and what I’d made. His horse stood broadside up the block, looking back at me. I had to leave. I had to run.

  Book THREE

  Did you see him?”

  “Course I did. The son of a bitch. Let’s follow him.”

  Up the hill the two bedragglers tail the lone horseman.

  “Crap, my lungs.”

  “I’m blown. That horse can step.”

  “Fuck, c’mon. We’ll catch up unless we quit.”

  “I thought we were quit already.”

  “We’ll rest.”

  “Why’re we followin him anyway?”

  “Cuz I’ve put in seven years, and he didn’t even tip his hat.”

  “He paid you for yer years.”

  “Course he paid me.”

  “Is he to be yer friend?”

  “I’d like to kick him in the ass, is what I’d like. C’mon, let’s catch up and swack him with rock-filled snowballs.”

  Running now. Running up the hill for all of fifty yards, then stopped again.

&nbs
p; “My legs are broke.”

  “Let’s sit for a moment.”

  “Time you think it is?”

  “No idea.”

  “If we sleep now, we’ll never wake in time to beat the whistle.”

  “Who’s sleepin?”

  “Yer not tired? Look at you, yer done.”

  “C’mon.” Snow scooped from the walk, and rocks added from the gutter. “I’m ready.”

  They’re under way when they hear the shot. And stop. And look around.

  “Hear that?”

  The snowball drops, tunk, on the walk.

  “Course I heard it.”

  “Let’s go back.”

  “Fuck you. C’mon.”

  Far up the road the black horse passes under the streetlight. It’s being led up the hill, and they walk after, still thinking they’ll catch him and give him a good swack, until they see the man in the road, nearly trip over him.

  “It’s him. Christ it’s him.”

  “He’s deader’n shit.”

  “The killer took his horse. That was the killer.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “I barely made out the horse. What’re you doin?”

  “Seven years.”

  “From a dead man. Don’t keep the billfold. Don’t keep nothin but the green.”

  “Closest I ever been to him.”

  “Me too.”

  “We can’t tell a soul, or we’ll be shackled and hung in five minutes flat.”

  “Let’s go home. Don’t take the watch.”

  “Why would I not take the watch?”

  “Because. I shouldn’t have to explain that.”

  “I’m takin it.”

  “You can’t keep it.”

  “It would pain me to leave it.”

  The gold pocketwatch ticks lovingly in his palm.

  “The pain of keepin it could be worse.”

  “Yer right. Yes, good-bye.”

  The watch, tucked back into the coat and patted tenderly. “With all this.” Bills wag in the night. “I’m buyin one of the Dolbeer donkeys and gettin in the woods. I’ll be a king.”

  “Hire someone to work it and stay home.”

  “Even better.”

  They stand with crumpled faces and appraise the settled death.

  “It’s awful, I know, but I still feel that I should give him a kick.”

  “You robbed him already. Let’s go. Downhill’ll be faster. You’ll see. Go on and run. I’ll give you a head start.”

  “Hell, I can pay someone to race you now.”

  Another wag of the bills, a bird flies low overhead.

  “Put that shit away. I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

  “Short-legged fucker. I’m faster than you at full tilt, and I’m steamin along at a mosey.”

  Boots on the boards. The night concedes.

  Teresa Boyerton

  She sat up in the dark and let the blankets slip from her shoulders. Light from the street threw ragged but familiar iodine-edged shadows across the ceiling. She knew the weeping willow by shape, sound, and even, if the winds were strong enough, smell. But it was a noise that had woken her. Something was wrong, besides the poultice on her arm, like an oddly wrapped gift, like a Chinese finger trap she’d seen in the junk shop with Duncan, a memory of connections before she’d made the connections themselves. One finger slid inside the woven sleeve, waiting for another. All her days with Duncan now seemed to be a warning.

  And it was him; he was the sound. He was yelling for her, and his voice was a shock to her system, a bee sting without the pain. They’d come to an agreement. They were no longer together. She’d promised her father. She didn’t know what time it was, but it was late, and all she could think was, Thank God my mother is in Seattle. Then, My father. He must be gone. He wouldn’t allow this sort of thing to go on outside his front door.

  Teresa lit the lamp, and Duncan finally went silent, but when she heaved open the window, he started yelling again. He stood under their yardlight in the trampled snow like a man on a stage. He had the reins of a black horse in one hand and a pistol in the other. Snow covered the porch roof below her window, and the husks of the sunflower seeds that Miss Dalgleish had tossed out were intermingled with the tracks of birds.

  “Teresa, please.”

  “Go away.”

  “You have to come down.”

  She held up her arm so he could see what he had done to her. “No, I don’t. Go away.” He turned his back to her and faced the black expanse of the harbor. He kicked at the ground like he was kicking an invisible ball. He dropped the reins and swung the pistol like a bat, raging. He was talking to himself.

  She closed the window, and he yelled her name again and again. The tinny repetitive sound itched in her mind like her bandaged arm itched. To herself: “Shhh, Duncan. I’m coming.”

  She went downstairs, filled with apprehension, quiet as cotton in her bare feet and nightgown. If he asked to marry her, she had to say no, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want any trouble. A fine way to live, without fuss. Pets do that. But she understood the facts as her father had explained them to her: She was young, and Duncan wasn’t the man to stand beside her and carry her for the rest of her life. He had just been the one for when she was young. In another world he could be her husband. In this, the answer was no. Angry now, she wondered why with Duncan it always came down to getting away with something. It would be nice to be in the right for once, to be proud. Why couldn’t he be someone she could be proud of?

  She quietly unlocked and opened the door, and Duncan picked up the reins and carefully looped them to the fence rail and passed through the gate. He still had the pistol in his hand, and when he saw her looking at it, he slid it into his belt. She recognized the horse but it didn’t make sense that he had it. He mounted the stairs and looked at her arm.

  “He’s not coming back.”

  “Who? Who isn’t coming back?”

  His eyes were wild and his skin was white. He looked like a ghoul. The porch boards creaked as he came closer to take her hand. She pulled away.

  “I shot him.”

  Then she knew what he’d done. “Where is he?”

  “In the street where I left him.” His eyes were fixed on her arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “We’ll be to San Francisco before anyone can catch us. We need money.”

  “I’m not leaving.” She didn’t want to believe him, but there was her father’s horse, and there was blood on his hand, his sleeve. “My brother is awake.”

  “If he wants to stand in our way, tell him to come down here. I’ll kill him too.”

  She pushed him in the chest, and he stumbled back off the porch onto the stairs. “I’m going to scream if you don’t leave.”

  “Please, Teresa.” He was crying.

  She looked into the face she no longer knew or could understand and screamed; she screamed as loudly as she was able, and didn’t stop until he was gone. He didn’t take the horse. He ran, and when he passed under the streetlight she could see the bottom of his boots caked in mud, his coat flapping, and the glint of the pistol as he took it out of his belt. Then he rounded the corner and was gone. The neighbors came out, old Mr. Jessup and his wife, Audrey, and after Teresa told them what she believed had happened to her father, they sent for the sheriff. Oliver’s door was locked, and he wouldn’t open it. Even after they’d found the body, and the sheriff and two deputies were downstairs and Miss Dalgleish had made coffee and heated biscuits, he wouldn’t get up. Teresa stood in his doorway, begging him. “Oliver, please. Something’s happened to Father. Please open the door. Please.”

  Oliver Boyerton

  Some things I’ve learned:

  —Once slowly is better than hurried through twice for carelessness.

  —No errand is so trivial as to be done shoddily (if I could only live by this rule, I would be a man illimitable).

  —Practice things in your mind to p
repare your body, things as simple as walking in mud and on muddy planks.

  —Forget dreams upon waking, they’re not for the daylight page.

  —Anoint thy skin to avoid chapping and chafing.

  —Change your skivvies every day, and most importantly: never turn down trim, no matter how rough it may be. It all gets bejewelled in the mind.

  Lacking a true scholarly streak, I make lists. Take notes as needed. Addenda adagio.

  Presented: A face expertly shaved. A face patted dry and grinning. My teeth, my best feature. If only the rest of me could be my teeth.

  Toiletries scattered around the washbasin. Disorder breeds disorder. Breeding is disorder, breeding breeds disorder. Nothing orderly about it except that most fundamental notch and peg of it. Gophers and gopher holes. The thought of rodent sex, then human sex. A childish smile bubbled up from my neck as I straightened out the lotions and balm and ointment for my pocked and pitted skin on one side, along with the colognes I never used but liked to smell, and the brushes and combs and razor on the other. When finished I cyclopsed my visage in the mirror and was confronted with the fact that my father dies only once, and today is the day that we bury him. Take stock and prepare: the presentation shall be grief mainly, with a fair portion of bravado. I’ll have to be the man of the house, the half a man. One eye crying half a tear.

  To me it seemed that my father could disallow the weather and keep the sunlight away out of spite.

  Today we remember a stubborn man, a man (cough) illimitable. I am a vessel that has been filled with his knowledge, and screwed tightly down with his lonely mistrust. Separate as cream from milk. Some see independence—he did build one of the most profitable mills on the West Coast outside of San Francisco—and he owns half the town, and you, friends, owe him your dark sorry lives. Thank him. Lick his oily boots. But I have to ask, how did you see him? What was he to you? One can never tell. I used to believe that people with red hair saw the world in red, and people with black hair saw it black, and blond and so on. I saw it half black, which is gray, and that seemed my particular method. Black hair and half an eye set. Maybe he was a great man. Did you know he liked to throw knives in his study when he went on a drunk? Teresa and I would listen at the door, jump at the sound of the blade going home. I spied him once stumbling upstairs in his skivvies with a bottle. He stopped suddenly and leaned against the wall—his head unknowingly placed perfectly between two portraits, one of my great-uncle, the other of my grandfather—and scratched his ass and then smelled his fingers. He seemed to take great pleasure in it. At church he never sang but moved his mouth like he was, not a unique trait, but for a man so mighty, it seems strange now. What doesn’t seem strange today? I have to find an assassin, or the assassin, rather. A cull for a killer, killer for a cull.