The Bully of Order

by Brian Hart

  She entered the room and dead-eyed him, with a thumbnail scraping the crusted lipstick from the corner of her mouth.

  “Might be harder to do this than liftin me from the ground.”

  “I doubt that.” Her dress came off like a shadow.

  Bellhouse

  He’d called the marshals to the union hall, and they all sat drinking coffee, waiting for Bellhouse or whoever else to say something. The McCandlisses had been told to hitch a team to Tartan’s wagon and bring him here. It was time to get these lawmen out of town, Bellhouse didn’t care how. They were ruining business. Teresa Boyerton was there with Oliver, and she looked scared. He’d had a talk with her last week and made her cry. She understood now. Delilah took care of the one-eyed brother.

  When Tartan came through the door, leaning on his crutch, Bellhouse got up from his desk and helped him into a chair.

  “The hell is this?” Tartan said.

  “Check his pockets,” Bellhouse said. “He carries the dead man’s timepiece with him at all times.” A marshal approached, searched Tartan’s coat, and came up with Boyerton’s watch.

  “What’s your father’s full name?” the marshal asked Oliver.

  “Charles Samuel Boyerton. That’s his watch. I can tell from here.”

  “Hank, you gave that to me not five days ago,” Tartan said.

  “Now, don’t start lying. You told me you stole it from Boyerton the night you killed him.” Bellhouse shook his head, held up his hands in surrender. “Time to confess, my old friend.”

  “We need your real name,” the marshal said. “And we need to know what happened out there when the sheriff was killed.”

  “What the hell we doin here?” Tartan said to Bellhouse. “You spinnin the wheel on me? I didn’t do nothin, and you know it. You gave me the fuckin watch. Coast Sailors Boys. That’s what he told me. Coast Sailors Boys. Christ.” Tartan laughed and kept laughing until he saw Cherquel Sha come up the stairs.

  “You come here to lie too?” Tartan asked.

  “I don’t lie.”

  “Who shot Chacartegui and the deputy?” the marshal asked.

  “This Dickerson here.”

  “Who shot me, then?” Tartan asked.

  “Who cares,” said the marshal. “Who fuckin cares.”

  “I’ll take the bounty now,” Bellhouse said.

  “You’ll be paid, sir, soon as he’s convicted of the murders.”

  Bellhouse and Teresa glanced at each other. Delilah brought Oliver a glass of beer. The room was far from jubilant. Oliver slid his hand up her leg, whispered, “Mabel.”

  She smiled at him and went back to the bar.

  The marshals worked quickly, and in moments Tartan was gone, hauled down the stairs and out the back door of the hall. His crutch had been left behind.

  “I’m buyin,” Bellhouse said, looking at Oliver and Teresa.

  “We have to go,” Teresa said.

  “I don’t,” Oliver said. “I’m stayin with Mabel and and Mr. Bellhouse.”

  “Whatever suits him,” Bellhouse said.

  “I’ll see you at home.” Teresa grabbed an umbrella going out the door, and it wasn’t until she was in the street that she realized it wasn’t hers. She considered taking it back, but what did it matter. There was a mudslide on the hill, and everyone was looking at it. Someone had her hand, and it was him, and it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be him. It was. He was smiling when she heard the shot and closed her eyes.

  Jacob

  Kozmin came in the house for dinner. We’d sold our first batch of slabs the day before, and the crew had finally been paid. Jonas had gone to town with them to make sure they were treated as well as they could be. They’d stuck with us when they didn’t have to, and that’s worth something more than a payday.

  The old man and I sat at the table and ate in silence. Nell’s diary was there between us, but he never asked what it was or even glanced at it. The person I was in her words was a shameful man. But she’d abandoned Duncan. I was one thing, her son another. She shouldn’t have done that. If we spoke again, I’d tell her. Maybe that’s all I’d tell her.

  After dinner Kozmin and I sat by the fire with a bottle.

  “Should I finish the story about Tarakanov?”

  “I’d like that. I’d nearly forgot. He was on the move last time you stopped, wasn’t he? Going to save Anna Petrovna.”

  “That’s right. He snuck into one of the Indians’ lodges in the middle of the night and took two Indian women captive. He believed he could trade them to get Anna Petrovna back and that he was one smart promyshlennik, and everyone was happy for the first time in a long time. Bulygin promised him everything but the crown.

  “Understandably they were more than surprised when they went to make the trade and Anna Petrovna didn’t want to go with them. She wanted to stay with the Hoh people because they treated her well. She didn’t want to starve alongside her husband, trying to get rescued by a ship that’d already sailed. Bulygin didn’t know what to say, but Tarakanov did.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said: I surrender.” Kozmin was smiling. “His comrades couldn’t believe it, but they knew that Tarakanov was the smartest of them all, and if he thought it a good idea, then it most likely was.”

  “They all just surrender to the savages?”

  “If they were savages, would Anna Petrovna want to stay with them?”

  “I’d suppose not.”

  “Half the group surrenders, the others drown trying to cross the bar in their canoe.”

  “Bulygin?”

  “Surrendered, and by the grace of his captors he was even permitted to live with his wife.”

  “Grace? They were slaves.”

  “Better to be slaves than dead and drowned.”

  “I’ve heard arguments to the contrary. In fact, most arguments are to the contrary.”

  “From those who haven’t spent a winter coast-bound with no food or decent shelter or hope of rescue. Thirty days of servitude is shorter than thirty days of starvation.”

  “So they treated them well.”

  “Those that earned good treatment. Bulygin died, and so did Anna Petrovna eventually, but Tarakanov lived, and years later he was ransomed and returned to New Arkhangel.”

  “All that, and he just went back?”

  Kozmin filled his cup and my own, and then set the empty bottle on the floor. “Above all else, survival.”

  I drank and felt my regrets swell in my guts. “When I was young,” I said, “I was afraid I would be hurt or that I would be a failure. Now I’m afraid I’ll be alone. Makes me think the only true coward is him that fears love.”

  “Well, that’s a cold dead one, isn’t it?”

  I nodded that it was and closed my eyes, felt the heat of the fire on my face and hands. “Yer a good friend, Kozmin.”

  “Yep, couldn’t do much better than me.”

  I was on the balcony of the Eagle, waiting for Salem to come back with our drinks. I’d had two already and was ripe for more. The crowd below was facing toward the scar on the hill left from the mudslide; it looked a little like a man’s face in profile with the fallen trees and ripped stumps cluttered around his throat.

  Then I saw her, the girl, and I knew who it was. She came from the Sailor’s Union, alone. In the street she stopped and looked at her umbrella, confused.

  Duncan stepped from the alley. I’d left him at Macklin’s church. He promised me he’d stay until I came back. He had to run to catch her, and in the crowd it seemed he was safe. When she turned, Teresa Boyerton realized who it was and smiled and lifted his hat from his head and kissed him.

  The crowd parted when the rifle came up. It was Zeb Parker, our old neighbor. He’d grown tall, his clothes hardly fit him, he had a scar on his face, and his eyes were wide and scared and locked on Duncan. He fired and the shot hit home and Duncan fell on his side on the muddied planks. Then the soldiers on the walk saw him and there was another volley, but
they shot high and Zeb stumbled backward from the splintering boards and fell. Teresa was the last one standing. It was a miracle she hadn’t been wounded. She held her arms out, screaming, and went toward the soldiers with her hands raised, begging them to stop. Behind her, Duncan was suddenly on his feet and running away, ran right by Zeb, gave him a look that said: I knew that it would be you, but I’m not angry. My boy had blood on his hand, and his shoulder was wet with it. Zeb rolled to his feet and gathered himself and ran after him, but slipped and fell headlong, and the barrel of his rifle augered in between two planks and stuck there. A soldier shoved Teresa to the ground and took aim at Duncan’s back; he had a clear line, but Ben McCandliss came through the Sailor’s Union doors with a knife in his hand, and the blade flashed across the back of the soldier’s neck and his shot went into the boards. The other soldiers turned on Ben, but his brother was there, swinging, and finally the marshals got in the middle and broke it up. Teresa stood in the street, looking after Duncan, but he was gone. Zeb left his rifle where it was and walked away with his head down and his hands out, like he wanted to shake some foulness from himself. I knew that gait, that full measure of sorrow.

  When I looked up, Bellhouse was alone on the balcony of the Sailor’s Union, looking back at me. We were two men above the fray. I imagined myself to be the tired, lost face of the Harbor, while Bellhouse, with his unapologetic symmetries and fearlessness, was the face of time itself. I wasn’t scared of him, and he looked away first.

  Last anyone saw Duncan, he was heading east toward the Wynooche. There were rumors and sightings; people called him the Wild Man, and he joined the skookum and the other ghosts that had dwelled and would forever dwell in the forest. If he lived, he had to know that he was no longer wanted. He had to have heard that much. We searched for him up and down the river and into the gorge. Salem and I even went back to the cave to see if he was there. He was gone.

  Boyerton’s sold the mill to a California outfit that was snug with Bellhouse, so the floating fleet went thin. Ben McCandliss was convicted of attempted murder on the soldier he slashed and put in the same prison as his father. His brother Joseph vowed publicly to break him out.

  Tartan died of his wounds before he went to trial. No one was sure of his real name, so Cherquel Sha carved a marker that read DICKERSON. He’s buried on the hill, not fifty feet from Nell’s empty casket. I dug it up. I saw the box. Looked like someone had filled it with rutabagas; they were all webby and shrunken to nothing, but still there. Go with God. I put her letters inside and covered it up.

  We still pretend that there will be a great city here someday, but the big trees are getting farther and farther out. We work harder for less, which is the way of the world. As the honing oil dries and the stone crumbles, the blade goes dull and rusts. There’re more hills and trees upon them, and it’s an insult to our very souls to look out at the wasted fortunes. I fear that what we crave is destruction, the barren world, a final and permanent bottom. For us, and this is most unfortunate, not even the end is enough.

  People say Teresa split with her family and went east by herself. Maybe Duncan’s with her. I like to think that he is, and that they have a child, but unlike me, and unlike Nell, they’ve left their selfishness behind. If I could give him any advice, it would be that one thing matters, and it isn’t you; it isn’t you at all. Protect your family.

  Epilogue

  Reverend Macklin stood outside the post office and studied the letter. It had no return address, and the handwriting was poor. The streets were noisier than usual, clogged with people getting supplies for the holiday. The excitement of tomorrow was a stain on every child’s face. There was to be a boxing match after the logger’s contest. The new baldheaded governor would be giving a speech on the steps of City Hall and doing a ribbon cutting at the new high school. The pews would be empty come Sunday, or maybe not. It was hard to judge. Sinning swelled the ranks, but so did prosperity.

  The reverend flipped the envelope over a few times, and then produced a pocketknife and slit it open. Inside was a single handwritten page folded in thirds; he opened it, and a feather fell at his feet. He stooped to pick it up and studied it for a moment, same color as his coffee when he used the goat’s milk, white tufted base, an eagle’s feather. Without thinking, he brought it to his nose and smelled it, smiled. The envelope had been addressed to him, but the letter wasn’t. He stopped reading after the first line, slipped the paper back in the envelope, folded it, and put it in his coat pocket. He looked at the feather, and a broad grin spread over his face. The ferry whistle was blowing. He had to hurry if he wanted to make it upriver to the Ellstroms’ before it got dark. He had to run for the dock. He felt the eyes of the townspeople on him as he went, and he smiled for them and waved the feather above his head, ridiculously.

  The triple whistle tells us it’s payday, and no work tomorrow either. Meaning we got two consecutives to drink ourselves stupid and watch the fireworks and the fights, like we’re short on noise or smoke or even marvelous brawls.

  At the locked gates of the mill we wait in a long and boisterous line and stamp our feet on the planks like stalled cattle.

  “You must be thankful she’s safe.”

  “I am. Never been more fearful than that. Made my guts bleed, waiting for the doc or the sound of the child, either one.”

  “It was a fever that followed?”

  “Worry caused it, but she’s safe now. The child will survive. My wife, she can’t help but worry. We’ve lost one already.”

  “Do you think they’ll have yer pay, since you went missin?”

  “Been wonderin that very thing.”

  The last ship at the docks is hitched to the tug and hauled under the open bridge. When it drops it won’t come up until the dawn of the fifth.

  The man door swings wide at the mill yard, and we get right and begin to file in.

  “What if they don’t have it? What if they stiff you and tell you yer done?”

  “I’ll gut the fucker that steals from me.”

  A few heads turn and bob yes to the prospect of violence. We want it now. The ox has horns for a reason. We step forward once every half minute like we’re all in a dullard’s wedding.

  A ferry boat steams by in the channel and blows its whistle and we wave and whistle back. She’s been freshly painted and the rails and stacks are all done up with streamers and gold ribbons.

  “Ain’t she a sight.”

  “Beauty is a vessel that ain’t crushed by lumber.”

  “But also one that is.”

  “Look at her go.”

  Acknowledgments

  The author would like to thank Bill Clegg and Terry Karten for their support, understanding, and advice; Van Syckle and Weinstein for the spark; Dustin Schumaker, because nothing beats experience; John Dominguez and the HRL, one man’s trash, another man’s reference material; Greg Koehler, Marla Akin, and Adam Gardner; my parents and sister; and most of all, Rachel and Madeleine, one little white house to the next.

  About the Author

  BRIAN HART was born in central Idaho in 1976. In 2005 he won the Keene Prize for Literature, one of the largest student literary prizes in the country. He received an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers in 2008 and is the author of the novel Then Came the Evening (Bloomsbury, 2009). He lives in Texas with his wife and daughter.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Brian Hart

  Then Came the Evening

  Credits

  Cover design by Richard Ljoenes

  Cover photographs: © Anderson & Middleton Company / Jones Photo Historical Collection (town); courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York (woman); courtesy of the Oakland History Room and the maps division of the Oakland Public Library (harbor)

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be c
onstrued as real. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE BULLY OF ORDER. Copyright © 2014 by Brian Hart. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hart, Brian (Brian Woodson)

  The bully of order : a novel / Brian Hart.—First Edition.

  ISBN 978-0-06-229774-7

  EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN 9780062297761

  1. Families—History—Fiction. 2. Families—Washington (State)—Social life and customs—Fiction. 3. Logging—Washington (State)—History—20th century—Fiction. 4. Washington (State)—History—20th century—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.A78396B852014

  813'.6—dc23

  2013048447

  1415161718OV/RRD10987654321

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