Jesse Ball - The Village on Horseback - Prose and Verse, 2003-2008

— So, you were on the swan’s side? asked Jane.

— I guess so. Yes, that’s right.

— Well, that’s even worse. It’s all right for a person to pick a side, but once he’s on that side he should stay there. You ought to have helped the swan escape. You should have stopped them from killing it, and helped it away. Or even helped it to maul the child, if you were really the swan’s friend. How could anyone ever trust you?

Jane gave Carr a very stern look and continued on down the path. The cygnet nipped at him as it passed, but its beak got fouled up in Carr’s coat, and it missed.

— You can’t own a swan, anyway, Carr yelled, somewhat spitefully. The Queen of England owns them all already.

And it was true. The Queen of England is the owner of all swans. It was decided a long time ago, and so it has always been.

The letter was in a cream-colored envelope. Francis Brennan, it said on the outside.

Carr gave the envelope to Brennan. He was standing on the stairs. Then he was handing the envelope to Brennan.

— What is this? said Brennan.

— They gave it to me. This morning, they gave it to me, for you.

Brennan took the envelope reluctantly. He turned it over in his hand.

— Tell me how it happened, he said.

— He shot Lubeck, and then they gave me the envelope. That’s it.

— That’s it, said Brennan.

He opened the envelope.

The floor of the room was wooden, and the boards ran for a very long way. Carr saw the board all the way to the wall and then back.

Brennan handed the opened letter back to Carr.

— What’s there to do? said Brennan.

He was a man of some principle, Brennan. He was studying for a Doctorate in Philosophy, and believed in maintaining a certain decorum in one’s manner of life. Nevertheless, he had refused to go with Lubeck that morning, and now he was to go himself.

— You’ll go with me, won’t you? he said to Carr.

— I will, said Carr, feeling the massive unbowed hand of fate upon his shoulder.

A long pause, then:

— Was he a very good shot? asked Brennan.

— Rather not. They were pretty close, and firing and firing. He must have missed Lubeck six or seven times.

He did not say anything about how Lubeck had stopped firing. He felt it might make matters worse.

— Six or seven times, said Brennan to himself. Six or seven times. At how many paces?

— Paces? I don’t know about paces. It was about twenty feet, though closer when he shot him.

Brennan nodded.

— Twenty feet.

It mustn’t have seemed to Brennan that the Judge was a very good pistoleer. However, the fact of the matter is, it is not so easy to shoot someone with a gun, even when you want to. In the Great War, for instance, people were always shooting their guns in the air instead of at the enemy.

— I’m going to just be here, said Brennan.

— All right.

— I’ll just be here, all right?

— All right. And I’ll meet you here.

— Here’s fine.

So, Carr left. Outside it was already dark and quite cold. Certain patches of air were colder than others, for there was no wind at all, none. He walked through these various patches and thought all the while of the soft cloth on which the pistols had been laid.

At that exact moment, the cloth was wrapped about both pistols in an intricate way so that the pistols were both protected from each other, and from outside objects. The pistols had been taken apart, cleaned and oiled, and put back together. Now, they sat in the trunk of the Judge’s automobile. The automobile was in the drive before the Judge’s house. The Judge was inside, sitting with his wife. She was pleading with him.

Carr could not sleep. He tried to read, but couldn’t make sense of anything. Then, he thought,

perhaps if I sit at the table, which is bare, I will be able to think of something that will put me in a position to sleep.

Often, I think, when one can’t sleep it is because one is, of a sudden, required to come to a certain conclusion or think through a certain idea, and one is unable to do it. Only by sheer exhaustion, deception, or pharmaceuticals, can one pass by.

He sat at the table.

The ancient Egyptians believed that there was a traveler, a god who was a traveler, who would come sometimes to table. You would never know him. He would just come knocking at your door, begging a meal, and if you let him in and fed him, if you gave him a place to stay, and kindness, he would reward you by teaching you the language that cats speak, so that, when you were dead, you could listen and learn from them the passage to paradise.

Lubeck was never kind, thought Carr. If anyone ever came begging at his door, he did not let that person in. Brennan was waiting on the steps when Carr arrived. Lubeck’s stepfather came out. He gave Brennan a key.

— There’s not much to know anyway, he said. It all just continues.

Brennan stood up.

— Let’s go, he said.

Carr nodded to Lubeck’s stepfather. Then away.

It was the same automobile. The bag had not stopped all the blood from coming out of the head the day before, and the back seat was stained.

— I’ll drive, said Carr.

Brennan was singing beneath his breath. Carr could not make out what it was. They passed along the streets, over the bridge, out of the town, through fields on the raised road and, again, there loomed up the specter of the track, the car through the bare trees, the waiting men beside it.

— How did this happen, said Brennan quietly.

— It’s happening, said Carr.

— What’s right? said Brennan. If I kill him, then his wife will have lost her husband and her child.

— You can’t think about that, said Carr.

— Maybe I’ll shoot him in the leg, said Brennan. Then it’ll stop.

The pistols were laid out on the hood again, on the same cloth.

Which one did Lubeck take? whispered Brennan.

— I don’t remember, said Carr. They look the same.

— They are the same, said the Judge’s second.

— They are not the same, said Brennan. One worked yesterday, and the other didn’t.

— Are you saying that. .? began the Judge’s second.

— No, no. I’m sure both revolvers fired, and accurately. That’s not what I’m saying. But one worked. Which one was it?

The Judge heard the argument and came over.

— What’s the trouble, he asked.

— He wants to know which gun was yours.

The Judge pointed to the left one. Brennan took it.

The marks were still on the track from the day before, but the Judge’s second redrew them anyway, with a broken stick. He smoothed over the place where Lubeck fell. He motioned to Carr.

— This goes the same way.

— I’ve explained it to him, said Carr.

— Right.

Carr nodded to Brennan, who was holding the pistol in both his hands with the barrel pointed down. Brennan walked slowly to the line.

— No, said Carr. You have to be back a bit.

— Oh, said Brennan. I’m sorry, I forgot.

His hands were shaking.

The Judge stood well behind his line. He nodded to his second. His second nodded to Carr.

— Ready? Carr asked Brennan.

Brennan’s face was curled up. He shook it a little, enough for a nod.

— Now.

The Judge advanced to his line.

Brennan stayed where he was.

The Judge raised the revolver and pointed it at Brennan. Brennan raised his pistol. He was still holding it with both hands. The gun shook uncontrollably.

— Come forward to the line, shouted the Judge’s second.