Alice Hoffman - The Museum of Extraordinary Things

Eddie did his best not to laugh. “It doesn’t work that way.” Only a fool would believe that a soul could be stolen on film, or that a fish was no different than a man and had a soul of equal worth. “If a camera interfered with souls, I’d be equally responsible for yours, since you sat for a portrait.”

“Maybe that’s why I let you trespass on such a regular basis.” Beck’s expression was thoughtful. “This river used to have schools of shad so thick you could walk across the river on their backs and your boots would stay dry. But then the boats came, and the nets, and now we’re lucky to have what little we’ve got. That’s why I run people off. I’d be within my rights to kill you, but now we’re in this together, like it or not.”

“Surely we’re not in anything together,” Eddie was quick to respond. As far as he was concerned the only thing they were in together was the boggy, green woods. He might have argued further, but he quickly bit his tongue when he noticed a rifle under the hermit’s coat. At crime scenes Eddie paid attention only to the limp forms, the black blood, a collection of images that formed his photograph. He was there to observe and report, nothing more. He’d never wondered if the victims’ throats were dry at the time of their demise, if their hands had been clammy, if they’d gotten down on their knees to beg for their lives. Now his own hands were themselves quite clammy, his throat nearly too dry to speak, though he managed as best he could. “Although I must say I’m glad I’m not another man.”

Before Beck could respond, Mitts wrenched forward, pulling free from the rope so that he might trot over to the hermit. He cheerfully knocked his stocky body against Beck’s legs.

“What’s this supposed to be?” the old man asked, surprised by the dog’s good nature.

“He was supposed to be a fighting dog. Then he was supposed to be dinner for the fish.” Eddie lifted his rod over his shoulder. If need be, he could use it to protect himself if the hermit’s suspicious side took over. “Now he’s supposed to be my dog.”

“He looks more like a rabbit. My dog would eat him in one bite.”

“Then I’m glad your dog’s not here.”

“You should be. He’s a wolf.”

To appease the old man, Eddie offered up the trout in the pail. “Consider this my gift to you.”

Beck shook the rolled wet newspaper he carried, filled with his catch. He’d clearly done far better than his younger compatriot. “I’ve got my own. I’ve got my own whiskey, too.” He showed off a battered flask tucked in his waistband. There was a glimmer of metal as the rifle shone.

Eddie was suddenly aware that if he should die here, on this riverbank, on this day, only his dog would mourn him, for there was no one else who knew or cared he was alive. Perhaps that meant he’d led a worthless life, yet alive was what he wished to be. He knew this from his pounding heart, which hit against his ribs as the Dutchman shifted his rifle away from that fragile, beating target. He knew it from the greenness of the trees surrounding him, from the rushing of the river, a wonder and a miracle he could not bear to lose. He gazed at the hermit directly. “I thank you, sir, for the use of your river, but the fish and I are going home.”

Beck stepped in still closer, squinting, a thoughtful, unreadable expression crossing his weathered face. He stunk of liquor and fish. For a moment the tension was high, then the old man grinned. “Before you go, answer this. What sort of fish walks on two legs?”

Relieved, Eddie grinned in turn. Riddles didn’t intimidate him. He was quick-witted from his days of working for Hochman. He’d learned that what men most often wished to hear were their own thoughts repeated back to them.

“The kind that will take me where I might not want to go?” Eddie ventured to say.

The Dutchman laughed and jabbed his finger into the younger man’s arm. “Exactly.” Cheerful then, he stooped to pet Mitts. “Good-bye, rabbit.”

The dog slobbered gratefully at the stranger’s attentions, then bounded off when Eddie whistled to call him away. When Eddie glanced over his shoulder, Beck had already disappeared. Eddie broke into a sweat as he climbed down the hillock. The Hudson was churning as the spring melt from upstate washed into the waters, but there was great relief in walking beside it, free and alive on this green day.

It was a long way to Chelsea, and when Eddie reached home that afternoon, he realized it would have been wiser to have allowed the fish to perish on the riverbank. After more than a hundred blocks, Eddie was tired and not the least bit hungry, though he fed the dog some scraps. After setting the pail on his table, Eddie lay down in his narrow bed for a nap, still wearing his coat and his boots. He hadn’t slept for more than twenty-four hours. Soon enough he dove into sleep the way a drowning man might, headfirst, unaware of the rest of the world, dreaming that the fish he’d caught had turned into a woman whose long dark hair fell down her back. Her feet were bare and cold as she climbed into bed beside him.

IT HAD BEEN a beautiful springlike day, but at a quarter to five in the afternoon on that same Saturday the sky turned a deep, oily gray and the air was suddenly heavy, the pressure sinking quickly, as it does before a storm. There seemed an instant of clarity and quiet, and then all at once, without warning, the silence of the city was shattered by a wave of noise. Eddie awoke streaming with sweat, his pulse hammering away, his dream disappearing before he could hold on to it. He could hear fire bells and a roar echoing from downtown. He leapt from bed and hurried to shift a wooden chair beneath the skylight in order to climb up and push open the glass to look outside. A cloud of black smoke was spreading above the rooftops. Sparks flew in red bursts, and then, from the east, a great torrent of flame swirled into the sky. It was the way some people said the world would end, in a fire that would engulf both the wicked and the innocent.

Eddie was thankful he’d slept in his coat and boots. All he needed to do was to grab his camera and lock up his dog before heading downtown. His heart was still pounding, as it had been in his dreams. He couldn’t shake his terror. He took the stairs two at a time; once outside, he quickly headed east on Twenty-third Street. Behind him, the river had turned black with ashes. Fifteen blocks downtown, a fire blazed out of control.

Despite the protests of the past years, workers were treated no better than they had been when Eddie had first learned the tailoring trade alongside his father. In the fall of 1909, a strike had led to the Uprising of the 20,000, and in the great hall of Cooper Union, where Abraham Lincoln had once spoken, workers took an oath to be loyal to their cause: the humane treatment of every man and woman who worked in the city of New York. There had been so many strikes that the past twelve months had been dubbed the year of the Great Revolt. But most agreed, workers still had no rights. Protesters were beaten and arrested on the barricades, then brought to night court at the Jefferson Market Courthouse, the men immediately jailed, the women sent to a grim prison workhouse called Blackwell’s Island. Manhattan Fire Chief Edward Croker had warned it was only a matter of time before a tragedy would occur due to the wretched unsafe conditions in the factories of lower New York. If nothing changed, every working man and woman knew there would be a terrible price to pay. Now, on this bitter afternoon, the time for that payment had come.