The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  The door closed behind me, and the room was dark. A cot was in the corner, a table and two chairs in front of a cookstove of stacked brick and rock with a redwood stovepipe.

  “Have a seat. Want coffee?”

  “I’d appreciate it.” I lifted the lid on the pan on the table, but it was only the chicken bones.

  “I could get us some eggs.”

  “I’m fine with the coffee. The manhunters find this place yet?”

  “There was one back when it all started, worked for Bellhouse. That big fucker with a fancy coat that got himself shot along with slint dick Chacartegui and his deputy.”

  “Tartan.”

  “That was it.”

  “No one else? None a the soldiers or lawmen?”

  “Nah. Fearful of the dark, they stick to the roads.”

  “I’m gonna tell you somethin, and you need to keep it quiet, get me?”

  “Sure, Doc.”

  “The one they’re huntin—”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s my son.”

  “You ain’t got a son.”

  “I do. I left him a long time ago. He’s lived in the Harbor this whole time, raised by my brother.”

  “You got a brother that lives around here? I’ve known you for years, didn’t know that. I thought your people were all out east.”

  “Most of em are. Can you help us?”

  “Us? He’s with you? The one who killed Boyerton and Chacartegui? Fuck me, he’s worth five thousand dead. Did you know that?”

  “He didn’t do nothin to Chacartegui. That was Tartan.”

  “He shouldn’t be here.” He studied my face for a few seconds. “I don’t know your name. I only know you as Doc. What’s your name proper?”

  “Jacob Ellstrom.”

  “I feel the cobwebs sliding from my eyeballs.”

  “You could take us to the cave.”

  “What for?”

  “He wants to get to town.”

  “Take the fuckin road.”

  “Do me this favor.”

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  “You told me you knew.”

  “I coulda lied.” Salem grinned. “You better get yer boy in here before someone sees him.”

  Salem fed us eggs and potatoes. The rain beat down on the roof, and the walls were black from leaking. Duncan looked caged and held his fork like a weapon.

  “I seen you before,” Salem said.

  “Maybe.”

  “I seen you with all those tough pricks gaggled up in front of the post office. Look where bein a tough prick got you.”

  Duncan blinked, and then tilted his head and smiled. “Bet it’d be nice livin out here with all these scurvious whores if you weren’t related to em.”

  “Yer welcome for the food.”

  “Tell us how to get to the cave, and we’ll be gone.” I was worried Salem would go for the reward. I didn’t think he would at first, but now I couldn’t see trusting him.

  “You should show us,” Duncan said.

  “I don’t wanna do shit out in that weather. And I’m not gonna do a friendly turn for you anyhow.”

  Duncan slid his plate away, licked a mottle of egg from his thumb.

  “Then do it for me,” I said.

  “Why’re you puttin me on? I ain’t done anything against you. Not once.”

  “I’ll pay you fifty dollars if you come with us and show us the way in.”

  “You’ll get lost. There’s more than one cave.”

  “We’ll need lanterns.”

  “And food,” Duncan said.

  “Don’t have but one lantern, and you just ate my fuckin food.”

  “One will be enough. Let’s get. I don’t wanna wait for folks to get stirring around outside.”

  “Fifty dollars?”

  I dug out my billfold from my coat and handed him his wet pay. Dogs were barking outside. Salem smiled and folded the bill three times and slid it into his pocket.

  We were soaked through by the time he led us into the shelter of the cave mouth. Water dripped from the brims of our hats, dripped from our earlobes and noses. The cave was dry and smelled earthen, like a grave. Legend said the path through the cave was marked by quartzite rocks that sparked blue when you chipped them together. I saw no quartzite.

  “Hundred feet in, it drops and you gotta climb down. There’s a river below.” Salem was trying to get the lantern lit, but it wasn’t taking. Animal turds, maybe wolf, against the wall at the mouth. Looking out at the storm gave me the feeling that I’d conquered something.

  Duncan wandered into the darkness and threw off his pack and sat on it. There were broken pieces of cratewood and glass shards mixed in with the sand on the floor. The lantern sputtered to life, and Salem went wordlessly into the cave. Duncan stood and followed him. The way was steep at first, and we had to climb ass first down and down, and it got colder as we went. Salem led and handed up the lantern when he needed both hands; then Duncan would hand it to me. It was a clean place below, no dirt or sign of animals. The sound of running water got louder and louder.

  “If we run into anyone down here, I believe I’ll fuckin combust from fear.” Duncan laughed, and Salem joined him. He was doing his best to be brave by saying how scared he was. There were unnameable threats filling the darkness, all the space of the cavern.

  The river was freshwater and clean tasting. I was sure we were below the level of the harbor and also of the sea. I’d expected brackish at best.

  “How deep you think it is?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” Salem said. “I always stopped above. Never made it this far.”

  “How do you know where we’re goin, then?” Duncan asked.

  “Heard people talk. My woman’s dead husband had been down here. He told me.”

  “How’d he die?” I said.

  In the flickering light Salem smiled. “My God is a vengeful and wrathful God. He doesn’t deal in mercy and kindness.”

  “Your God is everybody’s God,” Duncan said. “Sure as shit he’s mine.”

  I was about to tell Salem he could go back when I realized he couldn’t. One lantern. We were going together to the end. Duncan sat down against the wall, his feet splayed before him. He took off his hat, and his face glistened with sweat. We’d been going down for maybe an hour, seemed like. I couldn’t tell. I played my hand in the water before having another drink.

  “Let’s follow it down,” Salem said. “That’s the way.”

  Duncan had a boot off and was picking at his toes. “You ever gone downhill for that long and not run into the harbor? Shit, we started in a swamp. So it pours out where, the fuckin Orient?”

  “I don’t know,” Salem said. “Don’t seem like it can pour out anywhere cept if it runs uphill.”

  “Well, maybe that’s how it goes.”

  Duncan stood up, pulling on his boot. “A boat is what we need.”

  “Can’t get a fuckin boat down here,” Salem said.

  “I know that. Said we needed one, didn’t say we could have one.”

  I snatched up the lantern and headed out with the current. We had to stay together. The water disappeared a few times, but we could always hear it. We entered chambers of different sizes and shapes, and none of it was flat going. I made an effort to remember each one because the farther we went, the greater our chances of getting lost. And I hadn’t thought that until I thought it, and after I couldn’t much think of anything else. There’d be other ways to go down, so there’d be other ways to go up. Maybe we weren’t as low as we thought. Maybe the river poured out as a spring somewhere, and we’d have to dig our way to daylight.

  “There’s a door out?” I said to Salem.

  “I don’t think there’s a door of any kind. I’ve been told there is a way out, but this was by a man whose wife I was givin the prod when he wasn’t around. He could’ve been tryin to get me killed.”

  “But I’ve heard others speak of the cave. Indians used it.”
r />   “I never heard nothin,” Duncan said. “It look like Indians been down here?”

  I had to admit that it didn’t. We seemed to be the first. Our scuffs were the only scuffs.

  “Think we should go back?” Salem asked.

  “Might be a little late. I think we’ll be in the dark either way when that lantern runs out of fuel.”

  “So we try to find the mouth of this river? If it can be called a mouth, when it don’t have headwaters, as far as anyone knows.”

  “I think we should.”

  “Keep goin? This lantern goes, and you might want to change yer mind.”

  “I already want to change my mind. Hurry up. We can move faster than this.”

  We went quickly, in a bit of a panic. Twice we had to go in the water and float beneath the low ceiling. The water was ice cold and deep; I had the sense that it wasn’t living water, water before life, water before danger. Blue blood in the veins before it goes red on the ground. If we died down here, I thought we’d never go to heaven or anywhere. We’d become the loneliest ghosts in the world.

  Out on the rocks, three men staring at a lantern mantle like it was the face of God. No time. Back in the water, there was a chance that the river could siphon away and pin us down in some hole.

  The lantern banged against the cave roof as we floated along. We could bounce with our feet on the cave wall, and it wasn’t like swimming; it was like I imagine flying to be. Salem bounced too high and lost his hat. The water was going faster, and there was no shore to climb onto. Duncan went under first, then Salem, and the lantern went out. I worried that Salem had let go of the lantern because I could feel he was hanging on to me with both hands. Duncan was lost. It was absolute and total darkness, and I’d never felt so held and terrified in all my life. It’s like my very skin had turned into living fear. I had to hold Salem away from me so he wouldn’t keep me under. Then we were in the air and he was moaning, whimpering. Someone had me by the shirt, and was hauling me and Salem out of the water onto a slick stone ledge.

  “Did you lose it?” It was Duncan. “Salem? Do you have the lantern?”

  “I kept it.” The tinny sounds of it being handed over above me. Duncan had matches in an oilskin pouch in his hat, and he struck one and the lantern hissed and sputtered to life. We crouched, panting like run-out dogs. Duncan held the lantern up.

  “Look. There’s an opening.” A small crack in the floor widened in the wall and was man-size in the roof. We fit ourselves into the crack and shimmied up. We were in the bottom of a fishtrap. Duncan climbed up, and he was nimble with one hand and kept the lantern safe with the other. This was good. This was the way. It opened wider, and we entered a chamber that was as big as any we’d passed through.

  “Which way?” Duncan said.

  “You choose,” Salem said.

  “Some guide. You hear him crying back there?”

  “I’m doin the best I can.”

  “Leave him be, Duncan. He’s scared.”

  “I don’t want to be blamed for killing us,” Salem said.

  “We’ll be too dead to blame anyone. Which way?” Duncan said.

  I took the lantern and circled the chamber and chose the way that gained the most elevation. I couldn’t tell if it was me climbing and getting warm, or the air itself. Duncan was on my heels, and Salem on his. The lantern flickered once, and we stopped and watched it like it might say something, good-bye, explain itself on human terms, apologize for dying and leaving us in the dark. We needed it, and I prayed for it and hurried on. I was running where I could see. The path began to descend, and my heart fell with it. We’d have to go back.

  “We can’t go back down,” Duncan said.

  “Let’s try it for a while and see,” I said. We rounded a few corners and climbed over a rockpile and found a new chamber and climbed nearly straight up from there. The first thing that stopped me was a cut piece of lumber, gray and splintered, but saw cut. Then there was dirt, powdery and dry, with mouse tracks in it. We’d found a way out, or so it seemed. At the top of the chimney there was a deep, flat shelf, and at the end of it was a boulder wall dripping black water. There were chambers to the left of the wall, but they both died in solid rock.

  We dug like animals and rolled rocks away and under us and pushed them to the edge and heard them crash all the way down. The lantern flickered again, but this time it died and we were digging in the dark. Water drained in and made a muddy pool. Duncan climbed up and pushed against the boulders and they rolled outward. The air was fresh, but it was still dark. It was more cave, wet and muddy. We felt for the edges with our open hands. I speared my hand against a spiny stalk of devil’s club and finally realized we were outside, and it was night.

  “We made it,” Salem said.

  My son’s shape rose from the lesser darkness. The night was moonless, and the clouds covered the stars. I wanted it to rain so we would know for sure we were back in the world.

  With two matches to spare, we had a fire going. I thought we were south of where we started, but Salem wasn’t so sure. We’d been turned around down there. It seemed we were near the coast, but that would mean not only that we passed under two rivers and who knows how many creeks but that we’d slipped beneath a mile or so of open harbor. We put our backs to the trees and watched the fire. Dawn came a few hours later, and with the light came our bearings.

  “I know where we are,” Duncan said.

  Salem touched my shoulder and walked away.

  “Where’s he goin?”

  “Salem, come back here.”

  He held up a hand. “I’m goin to spend yer money, Doc. Whores with teeth and beautiful smiles and turpentine-free whiskey.” He’d already gained the road, and in another hour he’d be over the bridge and into town.

  “He’s gonna turn me in.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Oh, he might turn you in, but nobody’ll believe him. Nobody’ll even listen.”

  Tartan

  Out the second-story window, into the rain, garbled howler. “I’m not waiting, Haslett. You’ll hurry the fuck up, or I’ll kill you. Hear me?” Dr. Haslett, squinting against the drops. “Fine. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Half an hour.” Tartan slammed the window frame down, and the impact, the very sound, hurt his teeth and his guts. Haven’t shit in six days. Last time I pissed, I thought I’d goddamn die. Just hurry with the painkiller, Doc, cuz the whiskey does nothing.

  “Woman,” he yelled. “You old cow, get up here and fetch my crutch.” He had his pistol out, and his knife was stuck in the window sash. Footsteps on the stairs, and then there was a girl, sixteen or near it; he didn’t know her, hadn’t seen her before. He pointed to the crutch and mouth-breathed at her. She wasn’t afraid. She picked it up and tried to hand it over, but he had to stow his pistol before he could take it.

  “One or the other.” She had a sweet voice, and lips like she only fed on beets.

  He shoved the pistol in his belt. The grip went against his shot gut, and he didn’t know it till he bent to steady himself on the crutch. The pain pulled the rug.

  “Blacked out,” the girl said.

  He was looking at the ceiling, and then he was looking at the tit that had slipped out of her dress. “You’ll need help to stand me.”

  Then she was squirming under his neck, under his back, burrowing. She had her legs under her now, and she was squatting. “Hook my arm.”

  He did as she said. She was brutally strong. He thought she might be the strongest woman that ever lived. A marvel.

  Doc in the doorway.

  “About time, fatass.”

  He put the bottle and package of powder on the bedside table. “Sit.”

  “Just got up.”

  “Help him to the bed, dear.”

  The girl was under his good arm, a hand under his ass cheek, hauling him on. Set him down like a sack of eggs. Doc opened the package and mixed the white powder with a lit
tle of the liquid from the bottle in a small ceramic bowl from his bag and made a paste. “Dip your finger in it and slime it around your mouth.”

  The taste was awful, but the relief was instant. The girl licked her pinkie and dipped it in and sucked it clean. “Yell if you fall again.”

  “Yes.” All he could say through the joy of the pain disappearing. Doc folded the paper and slid the rest of the powder into the bottle, and then shook it up and passed it over. “Drink it sparingly. And don’t think you can move around, even though you don’t feel pain.”

  He drained half the bottle and then sucked the bitter from his teeth. Haslett shook his head and went to leave.

  “Know what I told him?” Tartan said.

  “Who?”

  “Ellstrom, the outlaw Ellstrom. Said his mother left and wasn’t dead. That was cruel of me.”

  “He came to see me,” Dr. Haslett said. “I know what you told him. It doesn’t matter why. I pity that boy. We’ve all failed him. Probably me most of all.” Haslett took a pull from one of the bottles of whiskey on the table. “They haven’t caught him yet. Two hundred men on the roads. I heard another hundred are out on the water. They got every bridge, every crossroad, and every rail station. It’s a national obsession, as far as that goes.”

  “If he lives, he’ll be comin here,” Tartan said.

  “No, he wouldn’t.”

  “He’ll want to kill me. And he’ll want the girl.”

  “Why would he want to kill you?”

  Tartan took the bottle and swirled the liquor. “Because I deserve it.”

  “We all do. Don’t drink all this, and don’t think you got the strength to get your prick up for that girl that was in here.”

  “I’ll know when I know.”

  “Your heart might stop, and then you wouldn’t know anything.”

  “I have a heart?”

  “Made of rotten leaves and fish guts.”

  He listened as the fat man descended the stairs. Without hope, he licked the powder remaining on the paper and decided the best would be to camp out at the Boyerton house and wait for Duncan to return. He could get Mason to haul him up there in a covered wagon, park him up the street. Get some more a this powder and wait. That’s a plan, a timber to cling to. Happy with himself, he called out for the girl. He waited on the bed with his prick out and blood seeping from the bandage on his stomach into the dark hairs.