David Ohle - The Pisstown Chaos

"If I could taste food, and if I was hungry, I'd have one," Charity said.

Mildred placed five bucks on the drum. "The Jake will do for me."

Katie brought a warm Jake and a jar of unguent to the table. "So, what are you doing way out here on this stupid island?"

"That neglected mansion up there was my summer home for a hundred years."

"Really?"

"She's very, very old," Charity said.

"You're one of the Ballses that used to live here?"

"Mildred."

"Oh, yeah, they told me about you. They said you were good friends with the Reverend."

Mildred applied unguent to Charity's leg and re-tied the bandana. "You can't be friendly with someone who's killed your husband with a faulty parachute, but that's another story."

Charity rubbed her eyes with bent fingers. "I'm sleepy, Mildred. I want to go to bed." When she tried to open them, the lids were stuck closed. Mildred applied unguent to them with cautious strokes until they opened.

Katie put her hands on her squared-off hips. "Heck if I know where you two'll stay tonight. The miners live in shacks down by the mine. I have a cot in the back. You're welcome to get down on the floor here if you want. Or, there's a mule wagon coming through tonight, a big freighter. They haul kegs of teeth to Bum Bay. That's a heavy load, but they'll take on a couple of passengers for a few bucks. I wouldn't go back to Pisstown. It's still calm in Bum Bay, I hear."

"A mule wagon? There were never mules on the Island."

"They brought them in to work in the mines, for heavy pulling."

A little dribble of cadaverine made its way from Charity's nostril to her lip.

"Get me another Jake," Mildred said.

"Too bad the miners wrecked your property. They even poisoned the groundwater and killed all your persimmon trees. It's a shame. I must say, though, when the trees died, the imps ran off. They love persimmons, you know. They used to serve a good imp stew here."

"Yes, I remember. We tamed a few and kept them as pets for my precious grandchildren, who also loved persimmons."

Katie removed loaves of urpmeal bread from the pelletstove oven and set them on the window sill to cool. "Here comes the freight wagon."

The mules drew the heavy wagon along the sandy road at a slow pace. Two Americans were aboard, one driving the mules, the other tightly clutching a carpetbag in his lap. The driver wore a wide-brimmed muleskin hat and a hand-sewn muleskin vest. A 20-caliber Sharps rifle lay at his feet. The passenger, who seemed wracked with pain, wore impskin boots and a tailored gray suit. He was unarmed.

"How's that back of yours, Mr. Harp?" the driver asked.

"I'm in unspeakable agony. I may as well be hanging on a cross."

"Probably worms got to your spine. Maybe you're infested."

"Not likely. I'm completely worm-free."

"What do you have in that bag you're hugging so hard?"

"That would be my business, Mr. Dewey."

"Well now, what are you, some kind of a snit?"

"My clothes, my toiletries, a tortoise shell comb. Nothing else."

"I'll bet. I'll just bet. It looks mighty heavy."

"I paid you five bucks for this ride. That should guarantee me some measure of privacy."

"We're stopping at Binder's for a while."

"Not for long, I hope. I'm in a hurry."

"Long enough for me to empty my bowels and fill my stomach."

Harp climbed down from the rig, still clutching the bag, wincing in pain with every movement of his back.

"Let me give you a hand with that, Ray."

Harp snatched it out of the driver's grasp. "No, thank you. I'll manage it myself."

"You've got something pretty precious in there, don't you? It's gold, isn't it? You've got a big brick of solid tooth gold in there, am I right?"

"Nothing of the kind."

"You know what they say about pure, porcelain-free tooth gold, don't you? To have it is to live in fear. To want it is to live in sorrow."

"I have nothing to fear, believe me."

Dewey entered the Binder store first, followed by a hobbled Harp, who had one hand on an aching hip and the other clutching the bag to his chest.

"Hello there, Howard Dewey," Katie said. "You haven't been through here in a while."

Dewey leaned his Sharps rifle against the wall. "Things were slow over at the mine, but now they hit a new vein, a big one. I'll be making regular runs from now on."

Harp sat beside one of the drums. "Two Jakes, please."

"What've you got for food, Katie girl?" Dewey chose the drum nearest his rifle to sit beside.

"Eels is all. And bread."

"All right, bring it on. I'm hungry enough to eat the ass end of a hydrophobic skunk."

Suddenly Katie was busy waiting tables and cooking eels.

Dewey tipped his hat to Mildred. "Evening, Ma'am."

"Good evening, sir. Katie tells me you sometimes take on passengers. We'd like to go to Bum Bay. I have a pied a terre there, with plenty room for myself and little Charity here. She's an orphan. She belongs to me now. I've given my word."

"I suppose I could put you in back, on top of the teeth. It'd be five bucks for you, three for the stinker."

Katie offered to warm an eel up for Harp. "No, thank you. My stomach is a little tub of acid. It was a hard ride."

"What you need to do," Mildred said, "is ball up some of that bread and drop it into your Jake."

"She's right," Dewey said, "Jake and bread'll do it."

Katie brought Harp a slice. In the process of balling the bread, he lost his grip on his bag and it fell to the floor, partially open. Dewey glanced down and saw the unmistakable glint of solid tooth gold.

"There it is, I knew it. This man has staked himself an illegal claim. No wonder he's got a sore back. He's been working his own private mine, in violation of every law on the books."

Katie picked up the bag and handed it to Harp. "Feels like about twenty pounds."

Dewey counted on his fingers. "That's what, on the Bum Bay market, that's a hundred bucks."

Harp said, "I was digging for potsherds. I found that brick." He held forth two open palms. "Do these look like the hands of a miner?"

Indeed, white and soft, with slender, delicate fingers, they were not the hands of anyone who'd done anything but light work. "I found it only a foot deep, under a dead persimmon tree, near the main house."

Dewey took up his rifle and pointed it at Harp's head. "Mr. Harp, sin has many tools but a lie is a handle that fits them all. Lying is a cursed and hateful vice. Now you ladies ought to turn around so you don't witness what I'm about to do."

"Let's be reasonable here," Harp said, shivering with fear, his aches forgotten.

"I'm going to take the law into my own hands, Mr. Harp. In the name of the Reverend, I'm about to march you outside, give you a pick and shovel to dig your own grave, then I'm going to unload this old Sharps right into your belly."

"I'm perfectly willing to share, even though I'm appalled at what I take to be outright armed robbery," Harp said.

"There's an element of finders keepers in all this, I have to admit," Mildred said. "But surely we should all have a share. It was mined from my estate, which entitles me to a share, and you, Mr. Dewey, will earn your third by taking us to Bum Bay."

"Me and Mr. Sharps, we'll keep you safe all the way. That I can promise."

Harp was somewhat calmed that Dewey had lowered the Sharps a few inches. "When we get to Bum Bay, we'll have it melted down and divided three ways."

"I'm sleepy all the time," Charity said, "but I never sleep much."

Katie led her to her cot. "There, honey, you lie down there and rest while I serve these people some supper."

When Dewey was full of eels and Jake, and had relieved himself in the ditch behind the store, the hour was late. All but Katie got aboard the freight wagon and hunkered down for the night-long ride. Mildred and Charity, both in a state of exhaustion, fell asleep quickly atop the sacks of teeth and didn't awaken until the wagon's wheels rolled noisily onto the wooden planks of the Bum Bay ferry and then stopped.