Omensetter’s Luck

11

Orcutt was not disposed to be pleasant. He ignored the question. He sipped his coffee.

We've business here ourselves, Truxton.

The self-appointed.

Someone has to. It's no pleasure.

Ain't it? Well, you'll not mind if I've no patience for it — fresh out of that. But I can figure what you're up to, you been hitching to it^-all along. It ain't completely usual in you, Curtis… I'll say it ain't good either. That sort of thing can wait, don't pile it up on top of all of this. You must be numb inside and that's a fact.

None of us is numb, we've got our feelings — the whole town has its feelings — and I'm surprised at what you say. My feelings — everybody's — they're just the same — you know that. Why, we harbored him. From the time he dragged his horse and bragging wagon into town, he made himself at home here. We took him in. Sure — Henry and Watson mainly — but everybody some. You've got no memory for it? the little time it took and what he's done? So you might say my feelings — all ours here — are just for everybody.

You're doing everybody's feeling for them, hey? Medically, that ain't easy.

Dammit, Truxton, you know what I mean. The problem's plain enough, and so's our duty. You should have heard the way that bastard talked when we came out here.

Duty, hey? Delightful word. The mons veneris of morality. So considerately short a noise too, duty is.

Orcutt blew on his coffee.

What a curious thing you are, though, Curtis, to speak of duty here so early on such a snowy morning when everyone is thick-eyed from sitting by the fire all night and tipped down in the mind.

Or is that your notion? What's eating on you?

Curtis — know what a doctor's duty is? He swears to it, you know. He takes a sacred Grecian oath. To do his duty.

Orcutt wiped his mouth.

Well it's two thousand years old — the oath is — but that don't help it any. What can a doctor really do, Curtis-ever think about it? I've been at it a long time now, and I know what I can do. Nothing. I sit around and drink coffee. Pass the time of day. It's a damn silly oath, really — pretentious and silly.

Oh well, Truxton—

Sawed both legs off a boy once that was smashed by a wagon. His mother says to me before I leave— I got his legs in a burlap bag his father kindly lent to me — you must be tired, do have tea. Red hair she had like a forest burning, and deep green eyes. So I did. I had tea. It was good tea, Curtis, most excellent of the green kind, carefully cooked, one of the best cups I ever drank — like this coffee now that Luther has so nicely boiled for me.

Look, really Truxton — jesus—

Only thing bothered was the blasted bag. He give it to me and he says: get them off the place, get them away. I drank my tea with the sack resting on my feet. I don't know what she thought it was, maybe she knew. I just prayed it wouldn't leak onto her rug. It didn't though — a little blood on my socks was all.

For god's sake, Truxton, we've been through enough.

I remember another time when I was holding the hand of a fellow in a coma — nothing to do but sit and look wise while the organs of his body ate on one another — a long night, it was, too, before he died — well, his son was sitting in a chair over by the door — he was maybe fifteen, maybe more — and he and I were the only ones in the room with his pa and his pa's snore — and the whole time, the whole time, mind, the whole time this boy sit there by the door looking down, hunting a picture of his hate in the floor, I don't know, but looking down and muttering over and over just loud enough for me to get it: I hope you die you bastard, die; I hope you die; die die die. Finally, you know, I just up and screams at him — thump thump thump, he'd been going, die die die — I yell to shut up, but he wasn't a person, he was a drip from a pump — thunk thunk thunk — die — that's all — and I had to get up and tilt back that chair and haul his ass out of that room like he was heaped up in a barrow… singing his little tune.

God. Tell them about the cut-rate tonsil—

The old man died of course, like he'd been told to, and then that crazy fool kid went in the barn and fired a shotgun at his head.

Doc? Hey, it's hurting again.

Let me tell you something funny about poor Boylee — we've lots of time.

Time… yeah. We've plenty of time.

Christ, yes, time, we've sure got that. We've got no damn horses but we've got time.

Doc — tell them about the—

Well several years back when the tail of the Hen Woods burned — remember? — Boylee was out there fighting the fire and one of the Duluth children — they've moved since, remember them? — climbed up a tree to watch the blaze — and it was something to see, too — so anyway, while he was watching he caught his foot in a crotch and got it stuck there. Well, as you can bet, he was howling something fearful as the fire burned down to him. Boylee was there too, running wild around the bottom of the tree and yelling like a fool when I rode up with Watson. Mat climbed up there easy and took him down. It wasn't hard, but Boylee — well, I just figure Boylee was afraid a little. Surprising, ain't it? Real scared, he must have been. It's interesting… Of course it wasn't snowing then, the twigs weren't frozen into nails and the bark icy, and of course it was broad day and the boy was a mere fifteen feet up, maybe, if that, and the climb — well — the kid had got there. Funny, ain't it, how things happen. Boylee's been mad at me ever since, just because I was there to see him do his dance, and maybe because I laughed so hard. Course the child was alive too, not shit on and bit up and hung out like Henry Pimber.

So you felt him over.

Ah — morning, Jethro — how's it feel to be awake? Good nap?

You touched his eyes.

Well — no… no — did you? I just figured it. A dramatic note.

A lie, in short, that's perfect truth. I can understand that.

Look, Truxton, I've been asking you a natural question. You know it's natural. There's plenty of reason for wondering. What do you think? Could he have?

Oh well — how high was he?

Seventy-five, eighty, wouldn't you say, Luther? Hey — you asleep?

No — christ. I'd say eighty easy.

About seventy's right, Menger said.

That high?

Orcutt thought a while, his nose over his coffee, inhaling the steam, his hands warming themselves at the cup.

That's high. It's more a matter for the preacher, seems to me, he said, nodding at Furber who was sprawled on the coats in the corner like a dead crow. He could have seen clean to Columbus from up there. It's hard to tell what a man will do if he's warmed up to it — Boylee for instance.

Why work so hard to kill yourself, why sweat?

And why so high? Didn't he want to be found?

To get shit on by birds like you said.

He'd have fell out of there some time, what was left of him.

The rain would have run right off him.

Well the wind would have dried him good.

Yeah. And the cold would have come on and held him a long time just in the shape he was. He'd have been well kept and damn near sound till summer.

That coat wouldn't have held him. The belt would have broke.

Well his branch did.

Was Boylee nesting on it?

No, I don't think so. He was on the one below it. He cut Henry loose and then he lost him — a cold load, I bet — and when Henry went he busted Boylee's branch off too.

Well, Orcutt said, I'm sorry I missed that. That must have been something. All my life I'll be sorry I missed it.

That's all right — Tott'll tell you about it till you're sick of it.

What do you suppose he went along for?

Without a single reason I can see to do it — that's what gets me.

He was getting well. He was okay — right, Doc?

Sure. What the hell was the point? He was okay — right? If he goes to execution in a chariot, and I in a cart or by foot, where is the glorious advantage, Furber quoted.

Orcutt felt of his beard and brushed it with his sleeve, happier now it was soft.

It's hard to figure, he said. That's high. Eighty's high. No ladies here? Ah then I'll chew. I must have a chew here somewhere.

He felt himself.

You know I took that sack away on my mare — she could smell it too, she reared around and fished to beat the devil — and I was maybe a mile on the road when I hear galloping behind me and it's father in a lather. The child is dead, he says, and I say that's too bad — it sure was no surprise-so I say that's too bad — what do you say, anyway, time like that? — and I get ready to give him back his money as I figure that's what he's come for, and well, I don't mind if it makes him feel any better, you know. But he says, holding out his hand in a smart-ass way, give me back the bag. The bag, I say, surprised, why? We want to bury him together, he says back, furious with me for being witless. You wouldn't want us to bury him in pieces, would you, separated like that from himself, he says, horrified. And he snatches the bag and gallops away, holding it out at arm's length, the thing beginning to wet its bottom and to swing and kick about by itself like he had a living chicken in it. Ain't that a funny one? Ah.

Orcutt finally dredged a piece of tobacco from his vest and carefully picked off the lint. With one hand he unclasped his knife and deftly sliced a generous hunk.

Just from the physical side you understand, he said — the other's outside science — my guess would be he wasn't strong enough to do it. Not by half. He'd been greatly sick, poor Henry had, and he was never what you'd call a powerful man, not in body surely, or in spirit either I should say. Not enough strength in him and not enough gumption.

Orcutt began chewing, closing his teeth slowly, and sighing as pleasure took possession of him. He leaned into the wall.

Well wind didn't blow him up there.

Well maybe Windy, Wise, and Noisy did.

With a fireman's carry.

The spirit moved him. Reverend, what do you think?

Henry's out there, why don't you ask him, Doctor? And he's smiling.

Furber sat up in a tumble of clothing.

Luther, please bring him kindly. Thawed, he'll speak. He was as hard as Christmas candy once before, when he was sick, remember? Set him right there nicely — by Chamlay the Beastly Badger, or by Ezra and Bessie, who've crossed their hearts in the table — or there, where Orcutt's leaning so in solemn silence, sunk in his dirty pleasure.

Furber rummaged in the pile.

Henry's eyes are out, but his tongue's in, I think.. Ink.

He picked at a mitten.

So the Lord says… ah… I am the Lord, says the Lord; I make all things. I stretch forth the heavens alone. I frustrate the omens of liars. Ha ha. I make diviners mad. I turn wise men backward and their asses inside out, and make their knowledge foolish… At last here come the monkeys on the horses.

Hold yourself together, Jethro, don't go to pieces. You have responsibilities here.

Do I go to pieces, Doctor? Here's a riddle: why am I so cold upon your faces? That's most unseemly in a man of my position, eh?… No answer. Then I shall keep my own good company.

Draped in hats and scarves and overcoats, Furber struggled to his feet.

Let's see: there'll be A to admire me, he said, ticking A off on the finger of a glove he had drawn only partly on so the finger flopped when he touched it.

Then there'll be B to bless me; C to cherish me; D … to undress me; E? to encourage me; F to — fondle… fondle… what an odd word. As ink. All as in ink. Ink's odd.

Hawkins laughed.

You look a sight.

He sounds a sight.

I shall recite a limerick of my own composition. It's very topical.

He held up an admonitory finger.

There was a young man of De Pauw—

The originality, my churchling smirkers, does not reside in the first line. Pffitt.

There was a young man of De Pauw,

who begot a giraffe with his jaw.

When compelled to admit it,

he said that he did it,

to repeal the Mendelian law.

It don't mean anything to me.

Sit down, Jethro, we've still got business.

But my dears — there's more:

All mankind now started to wonder,

concerning this cosmical blunder.

If giraffes, by this pass, can be got by an ass,

Who's the papa of lightning and thunder?

Say, Furb, that's pretty good. That's not so bad.

Then cried the Archbishop of London,

we are all quite certainly undone.

What such a jaw can,

an Anglican can,

by belling his balls with a bludgeon.

Whoo-ee, man. Whoo-ee.

By blowing his balls through a blowgun.

Whoo—

Furber, you're disgusting.

Don't be a pill, Olus. Furb, I didn't know you had it in you.

Olus is a sticky pill,

he will make you sick,

he will.

Hey — good — he caught you right off, Olus.

However this fraud from De Pauw,

who claimed to have broken the law,

broke down and

admitted 'twas not his jaw did it,

but his god father's beastly guffaw.

Hah—

Thank you, your gracious appreciation is applauded.

I'd like to settle some things in my mind, Furber, if you don't mind, Chamlay said.

A minister? A clown, Tott said. Lots of times we've had him in our house.

You smut muzzling mutt, Furber shouted.

Sit down, Furber, sit down!

But E's here to empty me — watch — he's wearing pink and has a passion to enter me. D's here to disparage me — there's nothing he can say, I'm black inside my clothing, black as ink. And then C — to chastise me, send me to Gilean, stripe my back. B to blame, to bully, to bluster, to bitch… A? A's last — to admonish me — no, surely more than that — no, perhaps to administer, nothing comes after.

Hey how do you think up those things?

But draw near here, you sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.

Furb—

You didn't know I knew the table of the elements.

It's quite a trick to make up poems like that.

Oh art is everywhere admired. And A is anger, or anguish, or ague, or agony…

Quick a trick.

As in ink.

How do you think up all that?

Stop baiting him, Luther, and let's get on.

The Reverend Andrew Pike's my muse.

What's he saying? who?

Oh it's that preacher, Luther, years ago, who was scalped by the Indians, Tott said.

Bait? Did someone say, bait?

Shut—

The righteous man perishes and no one takes it to heart. He was quite a ladies'—well, an Indian-maiden man, you might say.

T is for Tott and for tattletale. A greedy young spinster — hear that, Totty?

a greedy young spinster

ate, live, a lobster

and now every winter

when she sits dinner

as a kind of remonster

he pinches her inner.

Sit still, Bessie.

How about it, Doc?

Merciful men are taken away and no one minds.

With Curt there glaring at me? Ah, no thanks. Curt's heavy in his head and I'm heavy in my eyes.

Unfortunately, Olus said, Furber's the one that's light of tongue.

Do something with him, Tott yelled.

Wraps, said Furber, squashing a hat on his head and whirling a muffler around. God is kind… Hello… Good day… The weather's fine… Good hat. Good coat. Good glove. Oh God is kind. Say, against whom are you sporting yourself, pink pants? against whom are you making a wide pink mouth, and drawing out the tongue? are you not a child of transgression, a seed of falsehood?

Look Doc, Chamlay said, let's try to get on in spite of that.

He gestured.

I intend to get on, he said.

H is for snotspittle.

Jesus. Someone shut him up.

Kind cat. Kind dove. Kind dog. Kind gnat. Oh God is love. You should have listened to me. Then you should have had peace like a river. Henry's having some. He's smiling… smiling… Love this. Love that. Love lip. Love lap.

I'm here to settle this Pimber business in my mind, and I'm going to — no matter what.

H is for gorgespew.

Aaah.

Dear sweet kind cow. Dear sweet good goat. Dear black blind bat.

Come off it, Furber. That's enough. Dump all that stuff and settle on it.

Why am I so cold upon your faces? Answer: because I am the master of the resting places.

Is he drunk or something?

He's trying to keep Curt from his questions, Tott said. I know him.

Feed the fire now. Keep each your places. Soften Henry's mouth. His ghost will speak. It's out there now, hanging stiffly in him like a drying onion.

Fetch me my bag, Olus, will you? I don't know where it's got to.

Here's a fur hat for a hunter. Prosper the beetles.

Leave that stuff off, Furber.

A muffler from mother. It's like kitten cover. And body is to spirit as — these gloves to a lover.

I'll see if I can give him something — calm him some — he's had a seizure.

Don't worry about him, he's a toothless little weasel.

T is for truthlessness. T is for tickle my tummy and I'll tickle your testicle. T is for touch me not or for tit for tat.

Let him be, hell settle. He's all done in.

This Omensetter then — I say we should go out and get him.

Don't fire off hasty, Curtis.

Hasty, hell, I go by natural steps, by god, one at a time. I'll bet he's lit out. I'll bet that's what he's done. He's lit.

And leave his wife?

It's his neck — why not?

Why not, says Tott. Bessie, will you draw your breath in pain to tell our story? It's Omensetter's neck. And a neck's a neck. It's quite a lot. Why not? Says Tott.

Will you shut up, god damn it, will you?

Oh you are hoarse, you're very hoarse. I believe you've caught something.

Boylee's strong, and Boylee had a time up, Chamlay said, holding out an open hand to Orcutt and folding in a finger. And like you say, Henry had no strength at all, he said, folding in another. So I conclude that Henry didn't get up where we found him by himself. Chamlay formed a threatening fist. What do you say, Doc? Want to bet, he said, fanning his other fingers. Lucy Pimber says the last time she saw Henry, he was off to Omensetter's to collect the rent. Chamlay bent a finger. That rent was on Henry when we found him. He folded back another. So, he said — they met. Both fists drew angrily together, though Chamlay grinned.

Step by step, eh, Curtis, Doctor Orcutt said.

One more step, by god, and you'll be standing on him.

Give up if you want, George. You was always quick to fold, but I think I'll call him. Ah. Thank you Olus. I've got some sort of pill in here.

To pour in the porches of my ear.

Somewhere…

Never mind him.

… if I can find it.

We got all these Omensetters here now. Menger got them girls in. I say let's find him, Hawkins said.

I say he's lit.

So you can hunt him, Bessie, like you hunted for Hog Bellman?

What do you know about that?

I've heard you tell it.

Hawkins laughed and said: you ever hear a tale that Tott told honest? He's a glory awful liar.

… a liar…

You like to talk about the law, Curtis — ah, here it is — but the law won't like it. Here they are. One is all you take now — maybe, in a bit, another…. Jethro?

Furber said: then you shall bring forth that man or woman who have committed that wicked thing, you shall bring them forth to the gates, and there you shall stone them with stones until they die.

Will you give off groaning, George, said his brother.

Orcutt might as well have spit in my eye for all the good he done me, George said.

You said you were calling, Curtis said. I've more cards.

Ah, maybe. But you're not all that strong. There's cards you ain't got, for one thing — not yet anyhow. Now the way Henry's hanging — up so high — that's a high card, Curtis, like you say, but whose hand's it sitting in? Boylee's strong, you say. Boylee had a time. Okay. How strong would a man have to be to climb up that tree with a dead man hanging to him somehow? I hope you don't think Henry was alive then?

Why are you playing his hand?

Furber said: at the mouth of two witnesses, or three, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death, but at the mouth of one witness he shall not.

He'd be a dead weight, Curtis, all the way. And then he'd have to be hung out there and tied.

Chamlay slammed his palm down.

Jethro — that pill now…

We've hearts like the teeth of dogs, said Jethro Furber, crouching in the clothing.

Like I said, there're facts you haven't got yet. Have you looked our Henry over careful? Was he strangled? broke his neck? Hah — maybe he was shot. Or cut his throat with a razor, or died of the drizzles and the trot.

Ah — shit Doc—

There'll have to be an autopsy — that's what I'm saying.

Listen, Furber said, when I was a little boy and learning letters — A…, B…, C…, love was never taught to me, I couldn't spell it, the O was always missing, or the V, so I wrote love like live, or lure, or late, or law, or liar.

Furber wiped his nose noisily on someone's sleeve.

Look, he said, if it comes to law, I'll testify. I'll tell the truth for the first time.

Get out of them coats, god damn it.

I'll say I lied. I lied and lied. I spread hatred against him — all by lies. I turned myself against him-with my lies. I folded his own heart back against itself, and burned it black with lies. And after my lies, he spelled love: luck.

Get him to swallow that, will you, Doc.

I turned the land against him — planting it with lies. His wife was turned against him; his children turned against him — from my lies. I turned Mat, and all his friends, and all of Gilean, against him through my lies. I put it in your minds to be against him — all by lies. I turned even God against him by my lies.

Take Doc’s pill, Jethro, said Chamlay gently, you're just not well now. Everybody knows it's not in you to lie, whatever else—

With lots of water now — it's like a square one. You need any help to get to the kitchen?

Menger's asleep, that sonofabitch.

Careful, George, you've both the same ma.

I've a fuckin' eye.

I wish l could sleep. I'm dead, but I'm nervous somehow, Hawkins said.

Well put, Puker — dead but nervous — yes. Henry has a lively twitch.

Hawkins swore.

He'll leave, Furber now said earnestly. He promised me. He'll leave.

All those questions you've been asking. Curt: why would he kill himself? why would he choose the middle of a woods? why would he hang himself so high? why would he hold so tight onto that money? why this? why that? well you can ask those questions new again, if you think Omensetter killed him. There are just as many, and the same ones.

So no one would find him. It's simple, Doc. He just hid the body.

That's right, you're no bait, bodiless…

Hey — he's by the baby.

You okay, Furber?

Oaky… I am oaky… Yes, yes, coming…

Anyway, Omensetter found him, Tott said, sitting up. No point to hanging him so high in that case, seems to me.

Throw off suspicion, Curt said.

Didn't throw yours off, did it, Orcutt said.

It threw yours!

Oh, Curt's suspicion's all inside him, Tott said. Past his underwears.

Very good, Bessie. Why you're growing! There's no end—

Shit.

You say shit to a preacher? shit?

Anyhow, it would have been lots easier to bury him, seems to me, Knox said. Lots of easy places.

That's it, Jethro — in the kitchen — get some water.

In a fish, Furber said. I also know a man who's buried in his brother. And then I know another…

Menger's asleep, that sonofabitch.

If the ground was frozen, Curt said, then how easy? if the ground was frozen?

… another… here's another, I know — his tablet reads:

Mary was my wife,

and Mary was my mother,

merry was my life,

until I met my brother.

Still, Curt, there are a dozen better places: rocks, brush, river—

He stole from me my wife,

he stole from me my mother;

he stole from me my life,

lest I should love another.

Bravo, Jethro — not a bad tune, boy.

Not with the ground hard as marble.

But Curt, for god's sake, it wasn't, Olus said. We'd had only a few frosts when Henry disappeared, and the ground was easy.

This pill will spell love literally, and sleep my bittering tongue, but should I swallow?

How do we know, though how do we know that Henry was murdered the moment he disappeared.

Come on, Curt — come on.

Okay — so Omensetter waited with the body. He had Henry hid somewhere — a barn, a basement. Or maybe Henry went away — Cincinnati, Columbus — and then when he came back, Omensetter—

… towns beginning in C…

Ah, nah. Straws, Curtis. They won't hold you.

Chamlay flatted the table.

Besides, you cut the knot.

Shit on you Tott.

Furber spoke through his hands. They curtained his face.

The river, the boy, they beckoned him to Gilean — and now he's done — love's out between them like a candle. Curt, you weren't here, I was, I sat in a corner like a sensitive chair, like their daughters, dressed thinly in despair. No — come to Gilean, the child, the river, told him — come to Gilean, the capital of human nature. And now he knows. There's no further injury that we can do them — his wife or the girls. They will live on like we live, most likely… I knew a woman once who fell from a chair and died. We can't keep them anymore in Gilean — question or try them. That will merely injure those of us who've any feelings left — not them. And Curt, we have a trust — as a capital city — we have a responsibility.

Give it up, Curtis. Furber's right this time. They'll soon be leaving, Orcutt said. After they bury their boy as they'll be needing… Omensetter didn't kill Henry, though he may have the child on his conscience. He had no earthly reason.

Reason?

Yes, Orcutt said impatiently, a reason, a reason why.

I've got this fuckin' eye.

Reason, Furber murmured in surprise. He had no earthly reason…

Then Furber's body shook with the spasms of uncontrollable laughter, his mouth gaped and his chest heaved as if he were Brackett Omensetter himself in the deep bend of his luck, though not a sound emerged, only the whistle of his breath, and a few tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. The seizure passed before anyone could raise a hand, and Furber, giving them a frightened look, threw the doctor's pill in his mouth.

Orcutt rose and went to the window.

Come on. The snow's stopped. It's light. Let's see what we can do to clear ourselves away.