Poodie James

excerpt

heart attacks before. We would have lost two people if it hadn’t
been for Mr. James over there, and Engine Fred.”
“Engine Fred; is that name familiar to you?”
“He’s been one of our most faithful non-paying customers since
the 1920s. Every Great Northern detective from here to Minneapolis
knows Fred. He’s a favorite of the freight crews, right up there
with Sawdust Charlie and High Iron Jack. Now, I think he’s
moved into first place. I’m surprised that he showed up here. We
haven’t seen him on the road for more than a year.
“What caused the derailment?”
“Track separation. It looks like loose spikes gave way in a couple
of rotten ties, and that led to pressure on a faulty weld. It’s the sort
of thing we’d like to think routine maintenance would catch, and it
should have.”
“Could there have been some other cause?”
“Other cause, Chief? I’m a little behind you here.”
“Could a person have made this happen?
“Oh. Well, we always look for that possibility. We’ve had
derailments caused by debris on the tracks, but that’s when a train’s
highballing, not when it’s moseying through a town, like this one
was. And we didn’t find logs or concrete blocks or boulders. That’s
the kind of thing you look for.”
Poodie stood in the half circle of men watching the tank car’s
undercarriage dangle from the crane’s big hook.
“Mr. Hall,” Spanger said, “could someone have done something
to the rails?”
“Section of rail removed, switches opened, bolts cut; that sort of
thing happens, but not in this one. No, I’m afraid we’ll find that the
maintenance gangs overlooked a deteriorating situation. After so
many trains pushed on the weak section, it finally gave way and
that rail swung out of position at just the wrong time. I don’t think
I’d like to be the district supervisor around here.”
“You’re sure there was no sabotage?”
“I’m sure, Chief. That’s how it’s going into my report. But if you…

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In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

Larry pestered his parents to let us go off on our own. They wanted
us to take Lenore.
The youngest Cameron was a timid 10-year-old with a mouthful of
braces. She wore glasses held together with electrician’s tape. In all the
years we’d lived on the same street, I’d never once seen Lenore smile.
– Maybe next time, Larry said. Sorry, sis.
After the three of them had left, Larry and me doffed our shirts
and sprawled on a bench facing the sea. Lifeguards were perched in
elevated lookouts, walkie-talkies crackling, binoculars trained on
the overcooked swarms frolicking at water’s edge.
A pair of giggling girls passes in a gust of perfume.
Females liked Larry; they hardly noticed me. There was always a
couple following him at school. He trained his hair with a blow
dryer like the singer Bobby Vinton. He had muscles; I, freckles.
– ’Merican poontang, Larry said. It was a new word; he liked
using it.
The pair sat at the end of our bench.
– The tall one is mine, Larry says.
– Are you from around here?
– Nope, Larry replied. Tennessee. You?
– Canada, said one.
– We never met American guys before, the friend gushed.
– It’s your lucky day, Larry winked.
– I’m Cindy, the tall one said, sliding closer. She’s Corrine.
Larry introduced himself as Tate. I, he said, was Ken.
As the girls huddled, he whispered to me: I changed my mind.
The other one’s got bigger jugs.
Larry handed out Camels and corralled us around a lighter. For
just an instant Corrine’s shoulder brushed mine. The heat off her
tanned skin surged through mylimbs like a jolt of something powerful.
Another body. A woman’s.
– Are you guys going to the fairgrounds tomorrow night? asked
Cindy. There’s going to be live bands.
– For sure, Larry said.
– Have you got wheels?
Larry indicated a Corvette across the street and dangled a set of
keys — his house keys.
– It’s got a .327, he said.

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In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

spaghetti western. The ballplayer tried willing the inebriated soldiers—
wrestling in the dirt now, smashing bottles, urinating in the
ditches — to vanish, all a mirage. For the film crew to put away its
equipment and the brutal caliph to strip off the fake moustache and
disappear inside a trailer.
But it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a movie. The comandante was
swaggering through the clearing.
– El hombre comunista! he roared, a prosecutorial digit aimed at
Paco. And then, leaning over Witherspoon, Your Mexican friend is
not a student, yanqui! He is a dangerous radical!
But Witherspoon’s formal education had ended prematurely. He
wouldn’t have been able to identify a communist if one was standing
before him, although he seemed to recall being told that to be one
was a bad thing. Since puberty his had been a world of curves and
splitters, of wind sprints through a freshly cut outfield grass.
There had been an American teammate in the Florida State
League, a prospect from California. Every time he struck out, which
was often, the kid muttered, Effing commie bastards! For the longest
time Witherspoon believed a communist to be a southpaw who
threw breaking balls.
The comandante ordered his centurions to strap Paco to a tree. A
mango was placed atop his head. The soldier reached into
Witherspoon’s duffel bag and removed a baseball. It was Wild
Man’s talisman, the ball used in his first professional victory. He’d
intended to place it alongside his father’s war medals.
– It’s very warm today, the comandante addressed the crowd. We
need some entertainment, no?
Witherspoon was familiar with the expectations of spectators —
knew well that where they collect in sufficient numbers, so must
there be a performance.
First in Spanish, then in English, the comandante explained his
intentions:
– If the gringo knocks the mango from his friend’s head, the rebel
can continue his journey. We’ll pick him up another time. But if he
misses . . . The comandante’s gold tooth gleamed under the blazing
afternoon sun.
Witherspoon rose to his feet. He placed his fingers along the
seams of the baseball. A murmur rippled through the crowd.

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Poodie James

excerpt

darkness and silence, currents of air on his skin, the scent of the
apples surrounding him. I am floating in space. I am with my
mother, in her arms. I am safe inside her, waiting to be born, fearing
to be born, wanting to be born. The perfume drifting down
from his apple trees became the fragrance of his mother, the breeze
the dark swirl of her hair falling around him. Without my silence I
could not hear her laughter. He saw her laugh, felt her laugh, heard
her laugh, listened to her laughter echo down the years.
When he opened his eyes, the moon was clear of the ridge and
yellowing. The smoke of a cooking fire spiraled near the tracks and
Poodie wondered if anyone he knew was among the hobos in the
jungle. As he fell asleep, the moonlight etched the pattern of the
window across the foot of his bed.
He awakened hours later to a shuddering of the earth. In the
dimness, he saw a dish fall from the table to the floor, land on edge,
roll to the wall, stand against it for a second, fall flat and shatter.
He pulled the covers over his head and readied himself for another
shock. It did not come. He lay still for a minute, then eased his way
out of bed and across the floor. He opened the door slowly. Just
beyond the hobo jungle, he saw a red glow, and smoke. He pulled
on his clothes, went outside, grabbed his wagon and headed along
the path toward the tracks. It was as bright a moonlit night as that
one so long ago when the three men dragged him out of his cabin
and beat him. A hundred yards south of the jungle, a locomotive
was on its side, cars twisted off the track behind it, the one nearest
the engine capsized and on fire.
Poodie left the wagon and hurried down the tracks. Liquid from
the burning tank car flowed off the grade in molten rivulets, igniting
the brush between the Gellardy orchard and the tracks. He
caught sight of a big man clambering up the side of the overturned
locomotive. Twenty feet from the wreck, he walked into a wall of
heat. When he reached the engine, he looked up to see the man
gesturing to him to climb into the cab. He was saying something,
but Poodie could not make out what it was. The man grimaced,
waving him forward, and in the light of the flames Poodie saw…

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Poodie James

excerpt

Pete Torgerson glared at the the head of the health and safety
department, then again read the report on his desk. Poodie James’s
cabin was sanitary and safe. The wood stove was well away from
the wall, sitting on sheet metal and properly vented. The wiring
was good. The plumbing, a cold water sink, was up to code. The
outhouse was 50 feet from the cabin, sitting over a pit that had
recently been dug. No, the health officer told the mayor, Mr. James
did not know the inspector was coming. It was a surprise visit. No,
he said, the inspector was not a friend of Mr. James, he had never
met him. There was no need to put the comment in the report, but
the inspector said that he had never seen such an orderly little
house—a place for everything and everything in its place. No,
there was no reason for a second inspection. He wasn’t entirely sure
that the first one had been legal, but the mayor had ordered it.
Torgerson scowled and gestured that the meeting was over. He
swiveled his chair around and stared out the window.
September 25
High school is out so students can help with the harvest. They are everywhere,
in packing sheds and warehouses, picking in orchards. Little kids
not so long ago, at the pool, learning to swim, playing in the park. They
wave when I go by. I see them say, “Hi, Poodie.” My friends, almost
grown up. Marcie on the dock at the Red Chief warehouse, eating lunch
in the sun with other girls. My good friend Marcie.
Marcie Welch watched her hands reach onto the conveyor for the
fruit, twist the golden apples into their paper wraps, settle them
into their pasteboard niches, layer after layer, box after box with its
blue premium Red Chief label. They were off to—where, she
wondered—Seattle, New York, London, Hong Kong, South
America, Spain? Would a handsome young Spaniard admire one
of her apples, polish it on his sleeve, imagine that a beautiful girl
had packed it, fantasize about her before he bit through its skin
into the perfection of the white flesh? Would he live in a castle,
ride a white stallion when he inspected his vineyards, …

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In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

work-in-progress. On account of all the babies about, it was known
as Diaper Hill.
A few years after the family took possession of its new bungalow,
Mr. Rhodes, who drove a truck, was killed in a traffic accident. The
Mrs. had already lost her firstborn, a girl, to a heart defect.
In the early days of the Project the streets were unpaved and
unidentified, lined on both sides by the skeletons of unfinished
homes. It was a world of lumber and brick, of bulldozers and mud,
the air rank with dust and diesel fumes.
Fender dropped out of school in Grade 8. He busied himself
doing jobs others declined: cutting lawns and weeding gardens,
washing cars, helping out with paper routes — whatever he was
asked to do, whatever he was capable of. He was rarely seen without
his red baseball cap.
When I was working for Kellman’s Drugs, stocking shelves and
delivering prescriptions, Fender was running lunches to store owners
too busy to abandon their counters. He swept walkways and cleaned
windows. Occasionally somethingwould happen to remind us Fender
was different. He would anchor himself on the gravelled shoulder of
Rupert Street at rush hour, oblivious to the cars speeding under his
nose, unresponsive to concerns for his safety.
– Where’s he going so fast? Fender might ask of a passing motorist.
Fire someplace?
And if you, strolling by, should shrug your shoulders and walk
on, Fender might give chase, as he once did with me, whispering
into my ear, Maybe he’s going to the dentist! Maybe he’s late for
work! Then he flashes those green eyes of his as though it’s you
who’s the simpleton.
Most of the time, though, Fender was simply a little strange. He
was a devoted fan of the lowly Vancouver Canucks, following their
ineffectual tribulations on a transistor radio. He felt compelled to
announce each home-club goal to the world, running breathless into
shops to deliver the news.
More troubling was Fender’s habit of scaling telephone poles. He
used the steel service pegs running up both sides to make his ascent,
positioning himself centimetres from a live wire.
– It’s dangerous, Sgt. Toby McManus warned Mrs. Rhodes. The
lad will sizzle.

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Poodie james

excerpt

It must have been the old man’s genes, he thought; I wish
he’d been alive to see it.
George Pearson’s cry of golf agony brought Jeremy back to
1948.
“Look at that,” George said. “I can’t hit out of that tangle, especially
with a tree in the way.”
“Just use your 12 iron,” Jeremy told him, and chortled when
Pearson kicked the ball onto the fairway. “That’s a stroke,” he said.
“Don’t lose track of it.”
At lunch in the clubhouse, Jeremy gazed across the green
expanse of the course, taking in the order of the town across the
river, its bustle, the leafiness of its neighborhoods, the orchards
marching up into the brown foothills. Edging along just beyond
the river, a locomotive hauled cars of apples headed east.
“The steamers used to put in there right below the foot of
Orondo Street with wheat from upriver to be loaded on the trains”
he told Pearson. “What a jumble of a place it was. The buildings
were shacks and lean-tos, for the most part. The electric plant up in
the canyon had been running for a year or so, but most of the shanties
had oil lamps, and in winter lots of them burned down. The
streets were paved with dust that choked you when the weather
was dry and mud that tried to suck you under when the snow
melted. There were boulders in the middle of the avenue. When
she saw the place, Winifred wanted to get back on the train. It was
hard living, but folks kept coming. The population went from
fewer than 500 at the turn of the century to almost 2000 when we
came. They weren’t all farmers and families and legitimate businessmen.
There were half a dozen taverns with heavy gambling,
and until 1908 there was a booming red light district. The Dispatch
had something to do with ending that, and with voting out booze,
too.”
“The Dispatch, meaning Jeremy Stone,” Pearson said.
“And Winifred. This town had to be cleaned up if it was going
to develop properly.”
“I won’t mention Ted and Angie’s.”

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Poodie James

excerpt

“George,” he told Pearson, “I need your help with this hobo
thing. Winifred Stone is going to fight me on it.”
“I’m not on the council, Pete,” Pearson said, “and I sure don’t
have much clout with Mrs. Stone.”
“You’re one of her biggest advertisters.”
“So are you. Has it done you a lot of good politically? She knows
we need the paper to sell cars, and, anyway, she’d throw our business
away before she’d back off in a showdown. What do you want
me to do?”
“Just be at the next council meeting when we open this thing up
for citizen discussion, and make the case. You can get the business
community stirred up.”
“Pete, if we were talking about dozens of derelicts down by the
tracks, I might get upset about it. But there’s never more than a
handful of those guys in that jungle, and they’re always coming and
going. Hell, most people in town don’t even know they exist. What
are you going to do with that hand?”
Torgerson glanced at his cards.
“Raise.”
He put down five dollars.
“Sure,” Pearson said, sighing, “I’ll come to the council and say a
few words. We’re old friends and partners, and I’ve been taking
business away from you. It’s the least I can do.”
Fred Lawrence chuckled, and raised.
Two hands later, Torgerson looked at his watch, tossed his
cards into the center of the table and pushed his chair back.
“You folding, Mr. Mayor?” Pearson asked.
“Only in this poker game, George. I got a meeting with a man
from the railroad. Thanks for your help, pal. I’ll owe you one. We’ll
get those bums out of town, and Poodie James, too.”
“He’s harmless, Pete.”
“He’s going, George.”
Torgerson puzzled for a moment over the hard look Angie gave
him as he waved goodbye, but the hollow moan of a train whistle
made him hurry to his car.

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Poodie James

“Well, you keep an eye on him. This could be our opportunity.”
Spanger peeled off back to the curb, erasing his frown and nodding
greetings as parade watchers who stood packing the sidewalk
looked up and let him ease through. The first contingent of horsemen
was passing, a sheriff’s posse from Colville. The riders doffed
their white Stetsons to the crowd. Behind the posse came two
clowns with brooms, outsized dustpans and barrels on wheels.
“They should be following the Packard,” the chief said to himself.
A platoon of Marine Corps reserves from Seattle approached.
Spanger watched as they executed their maneuvers to commands
from a gunnery sergeant with a chest a size too big for his body.
“Oodareah, hah,” the gunny bellowed. The platoon reversed direction.
“Oodareah, hah,” and they were headed north again. The sergeant
halted the platoon and ran them through the manual of
arms, their M-1s snapping from one position to the next. “Pah ray
reh. Ai lehf.” The Marines dropped their rifles, extended them to
the side and stood with their left hands behind their backs. Their
heads swiveled toward the crowd in front of the hotel.
Spanger looked into the young faces and saw Riley Patterson
crouching in the Guadalcanal mud at dawn, the chin strap of his
helmet dangling, his rifle to his shoulder, slowly pitching backward
as the blood began to gush from the hole in his chest. “Jesus, Sarge,”
Patterson said, “oh, Jesus.” He died before Spanger could crawl to
his side. That left Darwin, the little B.A.R. man Eddie Krotz and a
Japanese machine gun nestled in the trees 50 yards up a rise.
“What’ll we do, Sarge?” Krotz said.
“Stay the hell down, for one thing,” Spanger said, “and whisper.
They may think we’re dead. I don’t know what we’ll do. What have
we got?”
“I got this Browning and three clips and a satchel charge and a
couple of grenades.”
“I’ve got a little ammo for the M-1, plus whatever Patterson had
left,” Spanger said. He reached toward a body next to him. “And now
I have the lieutenant’s .45.” He was shaking, but he was surprised at
the calmness of his thinking. The machine gun was quiet.

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Poodie James

excerpt

Marcie returned the smile, then
splashed him, hoisted herself up the ladder and walked away.
When she looked back, he was standing in the shallow water,
watching her, smiling.
After she cleared the pool house of the last of the swimmers,
Marcie peeled off her suit, showered, and stood examining her
image in the big locker room mirror, turning from side to side,
looking over her shoulder, running her hands down her waist and
onto her hips. She liked the contrast between the tan sections and
the rest of her. She liked the chestnut hair tumbling onto her
shoulders, the firmness and upward sweep of her breasts, the balancing
swell of her behind, the flatness of her tummy, the curve of
her calves into her ankles, the length of her legs. Too bad she had
to be covered all the time, she thought. She knew there were plenty
of boys, and men, too, who wanted to uncover her. She felt their
stares and sensed their craving. Poor things, thank goodness they
don’t know what I feel most of the time, she thought. It isn’t easy
to want what I want and live in a small town where everyone knows
everything about everyone and talks about it. In the heat and steam
of the locker room a long shiver invaded Marcie’s thighs.
She pulled on her blouse, skirt and sandals. Leaving the pool
house, she started in the direction of town. Poodie was sitting on
the edge of his wagon. She stopped and turned to look across the
lawn toward the river. Poodie joined her and took her hand. He led
her to the beginning of a trail, and they stood watching the
Columbia. The surface shimmered copper from the sun lowering
toward the Cascades. An advance guard of nighthawks swooped
low, gorging on colonies of gnats. Halfway across the river,
expelled by the churn and velocity of a deep eddy, a log heaved out
of the water. It flopped onto the surface with a crash that she could
hear 150 yards away and floated for a few seconds before the
unseen power of the river pulled it under. Marcie looked back.
There were no other people. All of the cars were gone. The sun
balanced like a coin on the roof of the ice plant across the road. The
old shamble of a building was a deep silhouette.

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