The Bully of Order Read Free

from the busted oxcart. Who built the ship, forged the blade? What drives the boom? Accidents? Providence? Destiny? It was a bull force that moved it, but delicate too. A wife’s gentle nagging and a steam engine’s crushing yard. What could be better than a frenzy? Find a place at the edge and make a fortune, that was the key. Stay well above the waterline, keep some perspective, always. Feeling brave? Raise a family. Berated? Raise some hell. Step on some necks. Sophisticators arrived by the dozen, sometimes hundreds, every day, and they were, more than anything, of all sorts: ecliptic, slicked by rain, gaunt at the rail, silent faces on silent ships passing through the fog and mist as if they were underwater. Lily hats in the stream. Jawbones in the mud, femurs in tar pits. Half the bones in your body are in your hands and feet. If nothing else, that should tell a person to stand and hang on. And sometimes, just so, I’d catch the profundity as it passed over their faces, like the mud sparrows flying from under the wharf and blocking the sky, when they’d just hit the breaking point, the point of realizing exactly what they’d gotten themselves into: I have no protection. I could die here, today. Now.
    When the women of the Line were little girls they’d never thought they could be waking up in sticky beds, scratched by sawdust, listening to the rain pelt the shingles along the shores of this dark harbor, or looking over their shoulder at a grunting logger with a belt in his fist, or perhaps more fearful, a charlatan physician, lancet raised: worried meet worried. The truth of it is that most of us are more like the oxen than the bullwhackers, and it’s a rare day when we don’t get turned, dogs be damned.
    The woman in the hat, the top button of her dress was undone. She must’ve felt the cold breath of the wind because she grasped her throat as if she meant to choke herself. I knew that I’d remember the white dress and the yellow hat for much longer than I’d remember the oxcart. Who remembers oxcarts? Bullwhackers, that’s who. Unfortunate that I could still conjure the scent of the boil and the dead rigidity of her hip as I held her.
    The first time I saw my wife, Nell, we were at a church in Cincinnati. She wore a blue dress with a white ribbon. I’ll never forget that. Ox and cart. Mud and puddle. Husband and wife.
    I looked up when I heard the shot and saw a man standing over the injured horse with a smoking pistol. The wreck had been cleared and loose planks spread over the holes in the street and the walkway. Sheasby was on his knees in front of his broken wall, picking at the damage with his doughy fingers, swinging his fat jowls around to whine, but no one was listening. I’d like to buy him out someday, chase him and his hardware store out of here, just to watch him go. He beats his children and I don’t like him.
    The oxen were brought over and the boy set chains to the dead horse and they dragged it away, most likely to Fortneau’s to be butchered, or, depending on the owner’s sentiment, it could be going up the hill to be buried, tombstone and flowers, not likely.
    Soon men again filled the streets. Look at them, all of them, beasty little slints. They landed here: torn, dirty, and scared; starving mostly, flashing their frantic grins and yellowpine teeth. Do your best, gents, and welcome to the Big Show. Watch the puddles. That one swallowed an oxcart. That other swallowed a town. Welcome to the white man’s burden, the slaughter of war ponies, the poisoning of the well. We’re doing it here, and we’ll take more if you got them.
    Maybe I should still be afraid but I’m not. I learned long ago that it’s easier to fail of your own volition than to be defeated, and truly weakness is only a triviality here, like bad teeth when the meat is tough. If you’re hungry, you’ll find a way to get it down.
    On cue, the