The Cunning Man Read online

  Hiram gripped his son’s shoulder with pride. He would have tousled Michael’s hair, once, but Michael was too big for that. “You decide what you want to do with a degree? You can’t say ‘spaceman,’ there are no spacemen. No Flash…Flash…”

  “Flash Gordon.”

  “Right. No Flash Gordons.”

  “There’ll be spacemen soon enough, Pap.”

  “Hoping to meet a blue-skinned beauty of Venus?”

  Michael’s grin collapsed. “Well, Jenny Lindow turned me down for the Mutual Improvement Association dance. That makes three girls in a row.”

  “Jenny’s a nice girl,” Hiram said.

  Michael nodded. “And she turned me down, anyway.”

  “You know, I was never very handy with the girls.”

  “Yeah, Pap,” Michael said. “But you’re white.”

  “You’re my son,” Hiram said. Maybe that was why Jenny had said no. Maybe her parents didn’t want her going to the dance with the cunning man’s son.

  Michael nodded. “I grew up with you and Mamma and Grandma Hettie. I went to church, I worked the farm, I learned my ABCs. But I’m not like you, Pap. Not…quite.”

  Hiram’s heart ached. He saw his son’s world diverging from his as fast as Flash Gordon’s rocket. “A spaceman, then?”

  Michael grinned again. “Probably a scientist first. Geologist, maybe. Or entomologist. Or…there are just too many choices.”

  Hiram clapped a hand gently on his son’s shoulder. “You’ll find your place in this world, Michael.”

  “So will you, Pap.”

  Hiram chuckled.

  Rounding a corner, Michael hit the brakes. A heavily rusted Model T lay stopped across the road, blocking it. Three men in overalls, thick gray sweaters, and boots clustered around the open hood. Black streaks marked their sweaters, and where undershirts peeped out, they were gray, rather than white.

  The Double-A threw up dust as it stopped. One of the men removed a hat and fanned away the cloud, revealing a hairline rising steeply from a widow’s peak. He settled the hat over his face; he kept his dark heavy-lidded eyes on Hiram and Michael.

  The other two men huddled over the engine, faces hidden.

  On Hiram’s right rose a steep hill, thick with pines. To the left a slope fell into the ice-choked Price River.

  “Well, I’m having no luck finding a girlfriend.” Michael laughed. “But I’m having a better day than those poor shmoes. Let me guess. We’re going to help them?”

  Widow’s Peak lifted a hand, keeping his hat over this face. He had dark eyes, dark hair, and skin that looked tan despite the winter. A Greek or a Turk, maybe? Hiram had known both in the war.

  Hiram touched the pocket of his overalls. His bloodstone clicked softly against his clasp knife.

  “Pap?” Michael asked. “Are we going to help them?”

  Hiram reached up and tilted the rearview mirror so he could see behind them. Another dark-haired man, this one in work pants and a gray-stained sheepskin coat buttoned all the way up and covering his face below his nose, came ambling out of a stand of pine trees, about a hundred feet away.

  Had he been relieving himself? Or was this the lookout, and the extra muscle?

  “Maybe,” he murmured.

  “Jeez, Pap, what’s going on?”

  Hiram opened the door and stepped out. “Did your car break down?” he called.

  He pressed the bloodstone against his thigh.

  “Yes, yes, the car, she is broke,” the man said.

  The bloodstone pinched his leg.

  The Greek was lying.

  “One second,” Hiram said.

  The Greek nodded. The fourth man stood stock still, watching.

  “Michael,” Hiram said in a low voice, “I’m going to move their car. When it’s clear, you’re going to drive past them. I’ll jump in the back. If you see trouble, and I can’t get to you, drive on to Helper and get the police.”

  Michael lowered his voice. “You mean…these guys are bandits?”

  “These guys are hungry.”

  Michael gripped the steering wheel. “What is this, cowboy times?”

  “Just watch for an opening. Then give her the gas, son.” Hiram slapped the roof and got down. He didn’t reach into the glove box to grab the Colt M1917—Hiram’s other great reminder of his friend from the war, Yas Yazzie.

  Hiram walked up to them, smiling widely. “Bad luck with your car.” His breath came quicker, and a thick sweat oozed down his sides, cold against his skin. With the first two fingers of his left hand he tapped his breastbone, drawing comfort from the metallic feel of the round iron chi-rho talisman that bumped against his skin. It was the very same amulet Grandma Hettie had given him the day his mother had disappeared. It was a disk of pure cast iron, forged at the new moon and well-fumigated with the Spirits of Mars before ever being worn. Its front and back faces were identical, bearing the chi-rho symbol, the great icon of Christ’s victory, in the center, and around the outer rim at the clock positions of midnight, three, six, and nine, the four Latin words in hoc signo vinces. The amulet protected the bearer against his enemies.

  He hoped these men weren’t his enemies.

  Widow’s Peak nodded. His eyes were fixed on Hiram. Hiram smelled liquor.

  “Can I help you move her so me and my son can get by?” he asked. “We’re on our way to the Kimball mine.”

  Something flashed in the Greek’s eyes. He grunted and reached into his pocket. “She no move.”

  The bloodstone pinched Hiram again.

  Hiram saw a smudge of white wood—ax handles hidden in the engine, within reach of the two men standing there.

  Hiram’s heart filled his ears. He fixed his eye on the Greek. “Your car isn’t broken, and you’re thinking about robbing us. I won’t let that happen, but I guess you might have families. I can give you some bread and canned vegetables.”

  “Maybe…maybe that’s okay.” Widow’s Peak looked uncertainly at his companions.

  The two men spun. Red bandanas covered their face. They pulled out the ax handles and barked words Hiram couldn’t understand at their friend.

  Widow’s Peak dropped his hat, revealing a mustache like a Fuller brush. From out of his pocket he pulled a gray sock sagging with something heavy in its end.

  A bag of groceries wasn’t going to resolve this conflict.

  Hiram charged Widow’s Peak, raising a fist. The Greek flinched, and Hiram plucked the sap out of his hand.

  Behind him, the Double-A growled. What if the fourth man on the road attacked Michael, rather than Hiram?

  Hiram spun the sap over his head like a sling and released it into the face of one of the ax-handle men. It struck him in the forehead and he dropped.

  The second man darted forward, raising his ax handle over his head.

  Hiram showed him his right fist, and then hammered the man’s face with his left. His knuckles crashed right into the red bandana, and sent the attacker staggering away.

  Hiram didn’t dare look back. He hurled himself on the seat of the Model T, pushed the clutch down with his left, and shifted the car into neutral with his right.

  The Model T didn’t move. Hiram glanced at the hand brake to the left and under the steering wheel. It was set.

  Hands grabbed Hiram’s left arm. He threw himself right and kicked backward like a mule. He saw his Harvesters connect with the nose over the Fuller brush, and then blood sprayed onto the Model T’s window. Widow’s Peak fell.

  The fourth man charged the car.

  Hiram released the brake and the Model T lurched forward.

  A sharp scream cut through the air.

  Michael pulled the Double-A past the Model T on the right side, as the rusted car rolled toward the river.

  Hiram squeezed out of the car. He stepped over Widow’s Peak, who lay hollering in the road and clutching his leg. The men with bandanas were standing up, and the fourth man was yelling urgently at them.

  Hiram jumped
onto the running boards of the Double-A. He slammed a hand onto the roof. “Go, son!”

  The men stopped chasing Hiram, and jumped into the Model T to stop it from rolling downhill into the river.

  Michael gave the truck gas and they sped away.

  When they were around a corner and out of sight, Hiram plunked himself back down on the seat. He let out a long breath.

  Michael drove with his mouth open. Sweat dripped off his nose. “Those guys, they would have robbed us. How did you know? What the hell, Pap?”

  Hiram closed his eyes, feeling light-headed. “Nice work, not running them over.”

  “You surprised me as much as you surprised those guys.” Michael laughed. “What were you saying to that guy before you took his sock away?”

  Hiram gave his son a weary grin. “I offered them a bag of groceries. Maybe I should have offered two?”

  Michael laughed in spite of himself. “I think they wanted the whole truck. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  Hiram sighed. He needed a long cool drink from the water jug in the back. Should he tell the police there were bandits in the canyon? But they might be the very men he had come here to help. At least he should tell someone about the injured fellow.

  The man he had injured.

  Hiram said a silent prayer for the hungry men who had attacked him.

  Michael finally had to answer his own question. “Yeah, the Great War. Punching out the Hun.”

  Chapter Three

  The truck climbed up Spring Canyon, the long valley above Helper that was home to many coal mines. The interior of the Double-A quickly became stifling, and stayed hot even when Hiram cracked a window. Hiram fished a green bandana from the bib pocket of his overalls and mopped at the sweat on his forehead. There wasn’t enough room in the cab of the truck to shrug out of his coat.

  Hiram was intensely thirsty.

  The road turned right in a broad loop around a stand of pine and the canyon opened. Three smaller canyons continued like splayed fingers, the yellow rock like skin and the junipers cloaked with snow like skinned knuckles. On the left side of the road a two-story white clapboard building hove into view. The two-foot tall wooden sign running the length of the building, above a deep porch and three rocking chairs, read dollars.

  “Hey, Pap, in these errands we do,” Michael said, “maybe we could arrange to go somewhere exciting. Like, I don’t know, Denver. Or California.”

  “I’m not sure I’d call them errands,” Hiram objected.

  “Would you call them…quests?” Michael asked. “We deliver groceries, we try to help people find jobs, we settle family disputes. Or anyway, you do those things. I’m more of a servant, really.”

  “We’re both servants,” Hiram said. “It’s a ministry. We’re trying to help people in need.”

  “I, for one,” Michael said, “need a drink.”

  “I could use a Coke, myself.” Hiram generally drank water, but at the moment, a cold Coca-Cola sounded inviting. This was a fasting day—Hiram tried to fast one day a week—but he drank when he fasted. A man had to, when his living included physical labor.

  Michael stroked his chin. “If you were driving this truck, I guess you could pull over and get a dope, if you wanted.”

  Hiram kept his gaze mild, but didn’t back away from Michael’s challenging eyes.

  Michael looked away first. “Coke. You know I just mean a Coke.”

  Hiram nodded. “I was thinking you might like a Coke, too.”

  “It’s like you’re a magician, reading my mind.” Michael grinned and eased over into a gravel drive beside the store.

  Hiram cringed at his son’s words.

  “Keep your boots on.” He climbed out of the truck, shutting the door and smiling in through the window.

  Was that a train whistle he heard, or the sound of distant music from one of the town’s bars or bordellos?

  But no, he was too far away to hear either. It had to be the wind.

  “It’s February, Pap. It’s freezing, and I’m driving the Double-A. Am I really going to take off my shoes?”

  “It’s just an expression,” Hiram said.

  “No one says it but you.” Michael grinned. Even wide open, his eyes seemed to be all dark brown iris. Like his father’s.

  Wide open, like Yas Yazzie’s eyes had been in the moment he died, in Europe’s frozen mud, thousands of miles from his red-rock home.

  “Old-fashioned, I guess.” Hiram loped toward the store with his long, bone-rattling strides.

  “Don’t I know it!”

  Stepping up onto the porch, Hiram sneaked a hand into his right pocket to touch the cool heliotropius.

  The other objects in the same pocket were his clasp knife and his Zippo lighter. He didn’t smoke, but many others did. A quick offer of a light could soften a heart.

  He stopped, hand on the doorknob. Hanging in the window, on the other side of the glass, were bunches of herbs. They hung stem-up and leaf-down, and many men would have simply walked past them, oblivious.

  Hiram knew the herbs, and he knew their uses. Peppermint and bay.

  You could cook with bay, and peppermint made a lovely tea. But both had a further use: they warded off hexes.

  The lead holding the shop’s windowpanes in place was twisted into irregular patterns. No, a single irregular pattern, repeating in each window. What was the meaning of the pattern? The planets, as well as angels and demons, each had a unique written sign. The signs were like the drawn equivalent of secret names.

  This kind of lore was beyond Hiram, though. It was book-lore, and his lore had mostly come to him by word of mouth.

  He turned back to see Michael, head lolling back against the seat, eyes closed.

  Hiram shook his head, chasing away baseless fears. He touched the Saturn ring on the ring finger of his left hand. He’d never worn a wedding band while Elmina was alive, but shortly after her death, he’d put the Saturn ring on. He’d never taken it off since.

  The night before, Hiram had dreamed of driving slowly on a desert road and calling Michael’s name, to no response. But not all dreams were prophetic. Hiram hadn’t bothered to consult the little dream dictionary in the bottom of his toolbox.

  And in the case of a truly dire emergency, Michael knew Hiram’s revolver was in the glove box, loaded with five rounds, one empty chamber for safety. There were six more bullets in a full moon clip beside the Colt.

  Hiram opened the shop door.

  He heard the chainsaw-like sound of two large dogs growling. Two black beasts leaned in his direction, snarling and yipping. Hiram recognized them as Rottweilers—he’d seen them in Germany.

  “Down, boys!” called a voice.

  The dogs retreated and Hiram entered.

  A second sign hung over the counter inside. It read: Scrip from all Spring Canyon mines accepted at eighty percent of face value, credit extended only to those who don’t need it. The short counter held a cash register, a book of accounts, and a dog-eared copy of the Sears, Roebuck catalog. Three walls of the room, floor to ceiling, were covered with deep wooden shelves, groaning under the panoply of goods a miner’s family could use to make a life, from Clabber Girl baking soda and White King soap to bolts of cloth and carpentry tools. Washboards and metal basins hung between the windows, and shovels leaned into the corners of the room. The shop floor was occupied by mannequins in Sunday frocks, iceboxes, and a washing machine with a very large drum.

  The Rottweilers slunk behind the counter, growls subsiding.

  A man in a white shirt and red suspenders stood at the register. His hair was white and so bristle-thick that Hiram thought he could count the hairs on the man’s head from across the room. It shot straight up like a rooster’s comb, without the glisten of pomade.

  “Hallo!” the old man bellowed. “Welcome!”

  Hiram nodded, squeezing the heliotropius and forcing himself not to touch the chi-rho talisman. “German?”

  The old man laughed merrily.
“How did you know? I didn’t slip and say velcome, did I?”

  Hiram shrugged. “I knew a few Germans.”

  “My name is Gus. Gus Dollar. And yes, I’m German. Or at least I was…in another life.” The old man pointed at Hiram’s coat. “You were a Doughboy?”

  Hiram nodded.

  With an explosion of laughter, two small children rushed into the storeroom from an open door in back. They were tow-headed balls of mercury, skittering back and forth across the planks, giggling at each change of direction.

  Would Hiram and Elmina have had children such as these, had she not carried such a fatal darkness within her?

  Stepping out of the way of the tumbling children, Hiram bumped a shelf and knocked a poppet off it. He caught the poppet in his large, callused hands and carefully placed it back into position, sitting on a shelf beside cans of Gibson and Maxwell House ground coffee.

  Next to the coffee, and not next to other toys.

  He looked at the poppet again, smiling blandly. It was made of orange wax and nearly featureless. It wore tiny overalls cut from calico, and tucked within the overalls and also wedged into the poppet’s wax was a buffalo nickel. It was a new coin, with the bison on one side and the Indian head on the other.

  It was a hex, an old shopkeeper’s charm for drawing customers into any business. Grandma Hettie had pointed out similar poppets in a tack and saddle shop in Santaquin and a greengrocer in Provo.

  Hiram bit back a laugh. It hadn’t been the heat inside the truck’s cab that had made him want to come inside and buy two Cokes, it had been this poppet. The idea was a tad disturbing, despite the fact that the charm was fundamentally harmless.

  He turned to look again at Gus Dollar. The old man chased the two children in one final circle around the room. He looked sixty, but he moved with the agility of a much younger man. Something was not quite right with his eyes.

  His left eye, Hiram realized. It didn’t move, it was fixed forward.

  A false eye? An injury?

  But for all that he had a bad eye and was old, Gus Dollar’s shop and his charm and the two children racing around him struck a deep bass note of envy in the bottom of Hiram Woolley’s soul.