World Made by Hand

Thirty-seven

I hurried down the hill through the ruins of State Street to the grassy riverbank in front of Dan Curry’s headquarters as quickly as I could, reentering another world, another reality. In the time I had been away-under an hour, actually-Curry’s minions had managed to hang two men from the gallows down beside the pump house. Apparently, the hanging had just concluded. Some spectators up front were turning to walk away, while a separate contingent remained up on the broad portico gazing over the balustrade down at the scene in muted conversation. The legs of one victim still twitched, and I recognized that they were the two young Marsden brothers who had importuned me only a little while ago to contact their father in Greenport. I wondered whether this was an object lesson for our benefit. I was still goggling at the swinging bodies when I felt a hand on my shoulder and reflexively spun on my heels. It was Joseph.

“Look what this monster has done now,” he said.

I was speechless.

“Well, let’s go and get Mr. Bullock’s boys before he stretches their necks too,” Joseph said.

“Where are the others?” I said.

Joseph cocked his head. Seth and Elam waited at a remove beside a warehouse under the freeway overpass, perhaps a hundred yards away, mounted, with two more of the horses.

“Where’s Minor?”

“I sent him up ahead with our goods. We’ll catch up with him later. What did you discover up yonder at the statehouse?”

“There’s nothing left up there that can stand up to this.”

“I didn’t think so,” Joseph said. “Well, then, let’s go pay Mr. Curry, then, and be gone, and leave them to their wickedness.”

My knees knocked from the sight of those boys hanging as we climbed the stairs and entered the building. We stopped at the first floor desk as we had before. Joseph told the guard that we had come to pay the fines owed for the release of our four men in custody. He scribbled a message and sent a boy up, as before. A minute later we were ushered back into Curry’s office. Curry was in the act of being barbered in his seat behind the desk with a smock tied over him. An old factotum had just finished shaving the whiskers on Curry’s neck with a straight razor and took up a pair of scissors to groom the beard and mustache.

“Ah, gentlemen, I’m told you’ve come to the right decision.”

“Yes, we have,” Joseph said.

“Excellent,” Curry said. “Birkenhaus, draw up discharge papers on these birds.”

“Yes, sir,” the secretary said.

“People complain about these taxes and duties,” Curry said, “but how else would we pay for the many improvements we’ve started, not to mention the ones planned? They don’t give out grants for this kind of thing anymore, you know. We’re on our own here-that’s enough, dammit. Get away from me!” he said to the barber and shoved him aside. The old fellow gathered up the tools of his trade off the desk, rolled them into the smock, and slunk out of the room like a whipped dog.

“Where was I?”

“Civic improvements,” Birkenhaus said.

“Right. It all comes down to good government. And local government is all that’s left, so we have to take every advantage where revenues are concerned. The people expect it. You see what I mean?”

“What about the cargo that was taken off the boat?” I said.

“What cargo?”

“Ten kegs of ninety-proof cider among other things.”

“I don’t know a thing about it,” Curry said, putting on a face of indignant surprise.

“Don’t you have some record?” I said.

“Why should we have a record?”

“How could you calculate an excise tax if you don’t know what the cargo was?”

Curry seemed to flush for a moment, as though embarrassed to be caught in an obvious lie.

“My tax people calculate that,” he retorted, a moment later. “And I’ll thank you to show a little respect for this office. Remember, I still have these persons of interest in my custody, and I enjoy hanging riffraff.”

Curry shot out his cuffs. He was wearing cufflinks in the shape of little acorns. He seemed to make a show of recomposing himself.

“Please, sit down,” he said. “All I know is what my people tell me. I can’t concern myself with every detail of what goes on around here. I’d go insane. A good leader knows how to delegate. These operations run on trust, on my ability to depend on people to discharge their duties. Now, if everyone were as honest and diligent as the people who work for me, we might become a great nation again-and perhaps we will be. And so you see another reason for weeding out the criminal element, the parasites, the tax evaders. Anyway, you can remit payment directly to me. You have the cash, right?”

“What about gold instead of U.S. paper dollars?” Joseph said.

Curry’s eyes widened perceptibly.

“What do you propose?” Curry said, obviously relishing the idea.

“Would an ounce satisfy these charges?”

“In lieu of half a million U.S. scrip?”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve got gold?”

“I do,” Joseph said.

“You just carry it right on your person?”

“In some situations only gold will answer.”

“My motto exactly-but one measly ounce for four men?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Seems… less than altogether required.”

“We’re talking about some tax owed on freight, aren’t we?”

“Why, yes, of course,” Curry said. “But each man is charged with evasion so the fine is additional and would be multiplied by four. Plus all the other misdemeanors. And there’s the slip fee for that boat of theirs—”

“Maybe you could find a way to calculate the total so it all worked out to what I am offering you,” Joseph said.

“Well, the thing is: is that all the gold you have?”

“You’re a piece of work, sir,” Joseph said.

“I know.” Curry said. “Nervy bastard, aren’t I?”

“I’ll say.”

“But you! You drive a hard bargain.”

“An ounce of gold is a tidy sum these days.”

“You’re right there,” Curry said. “But does it equal the pleasure I would get from hanging these four river rats? That’s what dogs me.”

“How much pleasure did you derive from hanging those two young fellows yonder just a while ago?”

“At least half as much,” Curry said and broke into a braving laugh. Birkenhaus, meanwhile, sprinkled some blotting sand on a document, waved it around to dry, and dangled it before Curry, who snatched it out of the air. “Ah, look, your paperwork’s ready. Now, you sir. Show me the goods.”

Joseph got the leather purse out of a pocket inside his coat. He untied the cinch and drew out a gold coin, placing it in the center of Curry’s desk. Curry hesitated a moment, then reached for it, emitting some little grunts of satisfaction.

“Is there anything prettier in this world than the shiny yellow metal that never tarnishes?” he said, admiring it in the sunlight from the big window behind him. “What’ve we got here? Hmm. Mexican gold peso. Oro puro. I like that.” He bit into it, then held it very close to examine it. “What do you think, Mr. B?” he said, passing it over to his secretary, who used a penknife to check for lead.

“Appears to be the real thing, Mr. C,” Birkenhaus said.

“By the way,” Curry said to Joseph, “how’d you come by this?”

“Earnest toil,” Joseph said. “May I ask you something, Mr. Curry?

“Sure, what?”

“Do you know the Lord?”

“What? You mean, like, Jesus Christ?”

“Yes.”

Curry stood, puffed out his cheeks, looked to the left and then to the right of himself and said, “Frankly, I don’t have time for that crap.

Just then, gunshots rang out down below. There were shouts and imprecations. Screams. More gunshots.

“What the hell?” Curry said.

“Don’t worry. You’re headed there directly,” Joseph said.

“Excuse—”

Before Curry could finish, Joseph had drawn a small pistol from his pocket and emptied the chamber in Curry’s forehead. A little red spot appeared there, just under Curry’s dark forelock, and his athletic body crumpled behind the desk like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Joseph then turned the pistol on Birkenhaus, who tried to dodge the line of fire only to be hit in the neck. Joseph must have gotten an artery because Birkenhaus spun around screaming as bright blood shot out between his fingers with such force that it literally splattered high up on the wall. The older woman who worked on the opposite side of the room watched all this agog.

“You shot my son!” she said, as Birkenhaus crashed to the floor.

“Which one was yours?”

She pointed where Curry lay.

“Him! You raised up a fiend!” Joseph said. “I ought to shoot you too, if I weren’t a Christian.”

“Oh, please, no,” she said, sobbing. “Don’t kill me!”

“Abominable wickedness the Lord hates,” Joseph screamed at her, with the tendons standing out in his neck and blue veins bulging in his forehead, while he waved his pistol at the terrified woman. “Then the just shall rejoice to see his vengeance and bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked…”

More gunshots resounded outside.

“For Christ’s sake,” I said, “let’s go!”

I had to drag him away. The woman collapsed in sheer fright. Joseph pulled himself together quickly. He remembered to retrieve his gold coin from Birkenhaus’s desk before we hurried out of the room.

“I thought our boys’d never make their move,” he said as we faced the stairs. “Good thing I actually had that dang peso.”