Power in the Blood

  “Yessir!”

  Johnny returned, red of face and three cents wealthier, before Noble had time to apply a complete layer of makeup to his cheeks, an act he was obliged nowadays to perform in order to hide the lattice of burst capillaries there. “Thank you, my boy, and may the proscenium never descend upon your shapely head. Go now.”

  Johnny vacated the dressing room, rubbing his pennies, and Noble set out the newspapers for his perusal while he worked at erasing thirty-years from his face. Very few of those years were painted away before he saw the story he had been searching for. It leapt at him from the pages as if set down in print for himself alone, the perfect vehicle for his talents and those of the Arcadians. A cannibal story! It was a breathtakingly daring concept, but he knew, as he scanned the gist of each paragraph, that only this monstrous event in distant Colorado (scene of Noble’s recent resurgence to fame—an omen, perhaps?) could overreach Red Hellions and bring even vaster audiences flocking to the marquee bearing his name. The Man-eater! or Horror in a Gold Mine. It was a stroke of genius to have summoned Johnny when he did! He would give the boy another dime tomorrow, just for bringing him the salvation he needed. Dame Fortune was smiling on Noble again, and he could think of no one more deserving.

  He applied himself to preparations for the evening role, his mind humming with character and plot. He would play Slade himself, naturally, and no one would laugh at him, since the fellow’s age was stated in the newspapers to be around fifty. He hoped the real cannibal was not caught, since he was already shaping a scene wherein Slade confessed his crime to God at some forsaken place in the wilderness. Noble would have liked to play the role of God also, but since that was impossible, and because he wanted no other actor in the troupe to have a role the equal of his own, he would represent God as a burning bush or some such thing, an interesting challenge in stage effects. Virtually the entire play would take place beneath the earth, a daring idea in itself, and would be in the form of a grand soliloquy every bit as moving as Hamlet’s, and considerably longer, as Slade bemoaned his fate and debated with himself the morality of staying alive by feasting on the flesh of another man. It would be a play unlike any written or performed before. Noble would be hailed at last as one of the immortals, and rightly so. Then let Marcie comment on his belly, the little snip.

  36

  Being a drunk in Denver eventually became unacceptable to Nevis Dunnigan, so he rode a freight train to Glory Hole with every intention of becoming a drunk there. He owned no paints or brushes, these having been pawned along with his easel, so the move was accomplished with little inconvenience beyond his exposure to the elements en route. Nevis asked himself, as he rode beneath a boxcar, how it was that someone with as much talent as himself had become what he was, but no clear answer presented itself. He supposed it was fate, and found comfort in so romantically impervious a force. Because his failure as an artist was not his own fault, Nevis could continue drinking without substantial guilt or self-loathing. He liked to do nothing so much as he liked to drink, and since fate had been unkind to him, Nevis would treat himself to the thing he liked most, whenever and however he could get hold of it. The trip to Glory Hole was a two bottle ride, and he dropped from beneath the train in Leo Brannan’s marshaling yards partially deaf in both ears from the continual grinding of steel upon steel, and bone dry.

  He had no firm recollection of why he had chosen Glory Hole, but since he was there, Nevis decided he would make the best of his choice, and discover where the watering holes were located. A town the size of Glory Hole must have plenty, he told himself, and Nevis was not wrong. He asked for and received several free drinks in saloons along Brannan Boulevard, enough to revive him after his ordeal by rail, and he found a meal of sorts in the trash bins behind several of the restaurants in between the saloons.

  Life was good, he felt, and Nevis had no regrets over his decision to relocate himself. By late afternoon he was actively searching for a barrel or packing crate in which to curl himself for sleep. No appropriate receptacle being encountered by sundown, which came early in a town jammed in a cleft between towering valley walls, Nevis compromised by wedging his body into a narrow space between a brick wall at the rear of a large building, and the lesser structure of wood nestling alongside. It was a tight fit, even for a man as thin as Nevis, but he did manage to squeeze himself in and sit down on a box that lay there. Fate had denied him greatness as an artist, but fate did provide boxes on which to sit when no more comfortable bed could be found. Nevis was proud of the mellowing within himself, which allowed him to see the world in such good-natured philosophical terms. He was almost asleep when Nightsoil Smith found him.

  “Hey there.”

  Nevis opened his eyes. So little light remained in the sky that he could see nothing more than a bulky silhouette blocking the narrow space between buildings.

  “Hey there,” the silhouette said again.

  “Good evening to you,” Nevis responded.

  “Need a place?”

  “I do.”

  “Haul yourself out of there and come on with me.”

  Nevis trusted the cheeriness in the man’s voice; it had a boisterous edge that most likely came from alcohol, and Nevis knew from experience that drinkers were often a sharing breed. Sure enough, no sooner had he extricated himself from his hideaway than the fellow produced a bottle and offered it without a word. Nevis drank deeply, then thanked him.

  “No charge,” said his new friend, and put out his hand. “Smith,” he said.

  “Dunnigan.”

  “I got a place that’s warm, even got a little woman inside of it.”

  “You have all the elements of happiness, Smith.”

  “That I do. Come on.”

  Nevis followed him through a series of narrow alleyways to a shack built against the side of a stable. From the moment he had accepted the bottle from Smith, Nevis had been aware of an unpleasant odor clinging to the man, and as they drew near the shack, he learned the reason for it.

  “See that wagon there?” said Smith, pointing through the stable’s open door. “That’s mine, every plank and nail. Got another’n behind it too.”

  Nevis could see a large metal tank of some kind behind the driver’s seat.

  “Are you a hauler, Smith?”

  “Oh, I am that, yessir.”

  “And what is it, might I ask, that you haul?”

  “Shit.”

  “Ah, yes—shit.”

  “Nightsoil Smith, I’m called. Haul away the shit from everyone’s can—well, not everyone, but plenty. I make a living, good living at it.” He passed the bottle again and they shared its dregs before approaching the shack. “Winnie, that’s my woman, she can go get her own dang drink.”

  Passing through the doorway, Nevis found the odor unabated within, and decided to breathe through his mouth until such time as Smith’s hospitality ceased and he could leave. The shack’s interior was furnished with what appeared to be cast-off tables and chairs and cabinets, and the woman in domestic reign appeared herself to be one of society’s castoffs. Although young, she had about her face the lines and shadows of middle age, and she did not look kindly upon the guest.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Donovan,” Smith told her.

  “Dunnigan,” Nevis corrected.

  “What’s he want?”

  “You just wipe that look off of your face and be polite when I bring a friend home, you hear?”

  Winnie turned away from them both and left the room, slamming a door behind her.

  “She gets that way,” Smith explained. “Don’t mind her.”

  “No offense taken,” Nevis assured him.

  “There’ll be grub; just sit yourself down.”

  Smith joined Winnie in what Nevis presumed was the bedroom. A pot simmered on the corner stove, tantalizing his nostrils. Nevis thought it might be stew, but the smell was difficult to identify, overwhelmed as it was by septic waftings from the stable. His garbage pickin
gs of the afternoon had not fully satisfied the man within, and Nevis became impatient for supper; it was all very well for a stranger to invite him home after sharing a drink, but he saw no reason to place a man within sniffing distance of food and not dish up a bowlful immediately.

  He approached the stove; definitely stew. Smith and Winnie were arguing behind the door, and rather than wait for a possible throwing-out if the woman won, Nevis picked up a greasy ladle and began scooping stew into his mouth. It burned his tongue and gums with exquisite fire, and he made small whimpering sounds of pleasure as taste overcame pain and his body begged for more. He managed to ingest several scoopings before the argument ceased and he was obliged to replace the ladle as he had found it. Nevis had time to wipe his chin before his hosts returned.

  “Smells good,” said Smith, rubbing his hands together.

  Winnie began smacking bowls onto the table, and the men sat down to await her serving, Smith tipping Nevis a broad wink to let him know all was well. Soon all three were noisily eating. Smith ordered bread to go with the stew, and Winnie fetched it without a word. She had not spoken at all since leaving the bedroom.

  “Come to Glory Hole for a reason?” Smith asked.

  “My health,” said Nevis. “I heard the mountain air takes years off a fellow’s life, and I do so yearn to be a child again.”

  Smith stared at him for several seconds, then howled and slapped the table. “Hear that, Winnie? Hear what he said? A child again!”

  Winnie glared at Nevis and bit into her bread.

  “Men are children anyway,” she said.

  “Oh, you just need a drink,” Smith chided. “Hell, I reckon we children do too, don’t we, Donovan?”

  “Dunnigan. Call me Nevis, please.”

  “Nevis? Well, all right, if you want me to.”

  Smith went outside with a promise to return momentarily.

  “He hides it,” said Winnie. “He thinks I don’t know where, but I do.”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t see a thing. What kind of work do you do?”

  “I used to be a painter, as a matter of fact.”

  “Well, this place never saw a lick. Want to paint it? He can pay you, even if he looks like he couldn’t. He saves it up and hides it away, every cent.”

  “Not that kind; a picture painter. An artist.” He groaned, reminded of his former self. It was strange, he thought, that he should want to impress the drab thing across the table.

  “Oh, that kind. You can paint my picture, then.”

  “I don’t have my materials anymore; I’m sorry.”

  Winnie got up and fetched a stub of pencil and a creased sheet of paper with a jumble of scribbled figures on one side. She turned it over and presented both to Nevis.

  “Show me.”

  “Very well. Sit, please.”

  Smith came inside with a bottle and sat down to uncork it before noticing the event taking place at the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “He’s an artist, he says, so he can just prove it.”

  “Artist?”

  “I’ll draw you too, if you like, Smith.”

  “Draw a picture of me? Hell, no one ever done that before. Had a camera picture one time, but I lost it.”

  “Cameras are machines. I am an artist. This pencil is not at all suitable.”

  “It’s all we got.”

  Nevis completed the sketch and showed it to Winnie. The change that came over her features was startling, and for a moment Nevis saw how very young she was.

  “He really is …! Look!”

  She thrust the paper at Smith, who took his time staring at it. “Looks like you, all right,” he admitted.

  “It’s exactly how I am!”

  Nevis had softened the lines bordering her lips and erased the dark shadows beneath Winnie’s eyes in his rendering, as a form of politeness toward her; he had even worked a slight wave into her hair, and avoided any suggestion of a poor complexion. Winnie took the portrait back and looked at it again, mesmerized by Nevis’s flattering version of herself. “You really are,” she breathed.

  “Thank you. Are there glasses?”

  “I’ll get them,” said Winnie, and drifted away from the table, still admiring her sketch.

  “You got her to smiling,” admired Smith. “That’s good, she’s a whole different woman when she smiles. Don’t happen often enough. Most of the time it’s spitting and meanness, like a bobcat, but she can be a loving woman when she wants.”

  “Oh, you hush,” said Winnie, returning with three cloudy glasses, but her voice was mild.

  They began to drink, Winnie taking in as much as the men. Nevis was pressed for his story, and told them of his artistry’s finest flowering.

  “Only a brothel, if you’ll excuse the word at your table, Miss Winnie, but a place of class and refinement, probably the finest in Denver; I can’t be sure, not being a man to patronize such establishments. A work of epic proportions it was, with a multitude of studies from nature, as we artists express it; fifty-three, if my memory serves me, and that does not include the animals.”

  “There’s animals in the picture too?”

  “Yes … dogs and cats here and there, you know, and a donkey eating hay; perfectly innocent behavior.”

  “But why didn’t it make you famous?” Winnie asked.

  “A sporting house is no gallery. Success such as I found in that venture—and they paid me well, I admit—does not bring further reward in the broader field of artistic endeavor. No, there were no commissions as a result of my efforts there, sad to say, and the money was all too soon gone where money was made to go.”

  “That’s a shame,” declared Winnie, fairly drunk by then.

  “It is indeed, but I bear no malice. Fate, you see, has conspired against me, and in the face of such daunting opposition, I have bowed my careworn head before the inevitable.”

  “So you didn’t come here to make pictures?” Smith asked.

  “I came here for no reason at all, my friend, and I expect no reason to sustain me while I am here.”

  Smith beamed widely, revealing large green teeth. “I can give you a job, regular work, alongside of me. I need a man, I do. It’s no favor; it’s real work for real wages.”

  “He’s a painter, not a shit collector.”

  “Well, I know that, stupid, but he needs a job just like anyone else does, to be paying his way till he paints a picture again, see.”

  “It’s not his line, is it, Nevis?”

  “I have no line anymore.”

  “Then you can get a new one, which is what I’m offering, dammit. Are the both of you not seeing straight here? Work is work, that’s the truth of it, and if you don’t do something to get paid for, why then, you’re just a scarecrow without a home, and that’s no good, nossir, not for someone that ain’t crippled and can’t do nothing anyhow, which Nevis ain’t a cripple, are you, Nevis?”

  “There are many pathways to failure,” said Nevis grandly.

  “That’s what I mean, see; you need a job.”

  The conversation pursued an elliptical course, with much shouting and not a little laughter. When the bottle finally was emptied, all three felt they were the oldest of friends, and the last secret between them was placed on the table alongside the bottle when Winnie left to relieve herself. “Used to be a whore down Leadville way,” confided Smith, “but she’s got a good nature if you stay on the right side of her. I’d be a lonely man, I reckon, without my Winnie, and I don’t care who knows.”

  “A charming companion,” agreed Nevis. “You’re a lucky fellow, Smith.”

  “That I am, and so’re you.” Smith winked.

  “To be sure.”

  “No, you are, same as me. She likes you. We’re lucky, the both of us, see. I let her, so don’t you be worried.”

  Failing to understand, Nevis smiled and nodded, and saluted Winnie on her return. “Hail, Winifred, queen among women, morning bloom of femalekind …
and pretty besides!”

  Her face became flushed beneath its coating of grime as Winnie gave him a curious smile and took herself into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  Smith winked again. “Give her a minute. Bottle’s gone anyway. Need to piss?”

  “I believe I do, yes.”

  They went out together and pissed twin streams beneath a full moon. “Over there,” said Smith, pointing to the outhouse. “For shitting, if you need to.”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Just so’s you know where. That one, that’s always the first to get emptied when I do my rounds. Start at home, I do, and work all around town and come back, that’s after I dump the honey, a course.”

  “Naturally. A man shouldn’t bring his work home with him, now should he.”

  Smith chuckled pleasantly. “You’re a funny feller, you are. We can work together, and you can stay here with us, I know she won’t make no fuss. She likes you, see, so there’s the extra thing to make you jump at the chance, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “Good. She’ll be ready now.”

  “Ready?”

  “For us, you know?”

  Nevis began to feel there was something in the relationship spelled out by Smith that had not been explained fully enough, but he was too drunk to attempt making sense of it. He followed his new employer inside the shack and through to the bedroom before becoming aware of his blunder.

  “Excuse me, Smith … Winnie.… Uh, where shall I sleep—would you mind showing me?”

  Smith shook his head, laughing softly, and began shedding his clothes. “No need to be shy,” he said. “We’re all of us God’s creatures that he made, as my granny said.”

  “She wasn’t thinking about what you’re thinking about, though,” said Winnie, her face barely visible above the comforter of the room’s only bed.

  “That she wasn’t,” Smith agreed, “but then, she was an old lady, with her thinkings behind her.”

  Winnie giggled and flung the covers aside for him to get beneath. Nevis caught a glimpse of her nakedness, and Smith’s, and did not know what to do.