The Sisters Brothers (13 page)

*
Approached by Warm today, quite out of the blue, and after having scarcely laid eyes upon him for nearly a week. I was passing through the hotel lobby and he snuck to my side, lifting my arm by the elbow like a gentleman helping a lady over patchy terrain. This surprised me, naturally, and I broke off with a start. At this, he looked hurt and demanded, ‘Are we engaged to be married or aren’t we?’ It was nine o’clock in the morning but he was drunken, that was plain. I told him to leave off following me, which surprised him and me both, for though I had sensed a body spying on me these last few days and nights, it was a distant feeling and I had not formulated the words in my own mind. But I saw by his guilty expression that he had been following me, and I was glad to have stood my ground with him. He asked if I would loan him a dollar and I said I would not. Upon receiving my answer he popped his top hat, frayed and dusty, and left the hotel with his thumbs hooked in his vest, his head tilted proudly back. Crossing past the awning, he stepped into the street, and the bright warmth of the sun. This gave him pleasure, and he extended his arms as if to soak in the light. A team of horses was pulling a load of garbage up the hill and Warm climbed casually onto the back of the cart, this accomplished so nimbly as to have gone unnoticed by the driver. It was a graceful exit, I could not deny it, though generally he is looking all the worse than when I first laid eyes on him, not so much from drink as overall misuse of self. He smells ghastly. I should not be surprised if he expires before those two from Oregon City arrive to put him down.

*
One of the odder days I have yet passed. This morning, Warm was once again waiting in the lobby. I spotted him before he did me, and I made a study of his markedly improved appearance. His clothes had been cleaned and mended and he had bathed. His beard was combed, his face scrubbed, and he looked to be an altogether different person from the man who had accosted me twenty-four hours earlier. Presently he spied me at the base of the stairway and hurried across the lobby to take up my hand, offering his sincerest apologies for his behavior on the previous day. He looked touched, genuinely, when I accepted this, which in turn touched me, or gave me pause, for here was an unknown version of a man I had thought I knew, and knew well. To my increased amazement he then asked if he might treat me to lunch, and though I was not hungry I took him up on this, curious as I was to learn what change of fate had befallen this previously destitute and grubby individual.

We retired to a restaurant of his choosing, a charmless garbage chute of a lopsided shack called the Black Skull, where Warm was enthusiastically greeted by the owner, a rank-smelling man with a black-and-red-checkered leather eye patch and not a single tooth in his head. This dubious personage asked Warm how his ‘work’ was progressing, and Warm replied with a single word, ‘Glowingly.’ This made little sense to me but tickled the owner acutely. He showed us to a far table with a curtain, bringing us two bowls of tasteless stew and a loaf of bread, tangy with threat of mold. No bill was ever presented to us, and when I asked Warm about the nature of his and the owner’s alliance he whispered that it was not yet realized but that he had ‘every faith it would come to nothing.’

After lunch, when the owner had cleared the table and drawn the curtain for us, Warm’s jovial composure changed, and he became stiff and serious. He took a half minute to gather his thoughts and at last looked me in the eye, saying, ‘I
have
been watching you, yes, it is the truth. I began to do this at first with the thought of learning your weaknesses. Let me admit it to you then. I have thought about killing you, or having you killed.’ When I asked him why he would wish such a thing he said, ‘But of course the moment I saw you I knew you were the Commodore’s man.’ ‘The Commodore?’ I said vaguely. ‘Whatever in the world is that?’ He shook his head at my novice playacting, dismissing it out of hand, and returned to his speech. ‘My feelings for you quickly changed, Mr. Morris, and I’ll tell you why. You haven’t a dishonest bone in your body. Typically, for example, when a man wishes another man a good morning, he will smile just as long as he is facing the other person, but as soon as he passes by, the smile immediately drops from his face. His smile had been a false one. That man is a liar, do you see?’ ‘But everyone does that,’ I said. ‘It is only a small civility.’ ‘You do not do it,’ he told me. ‘Your smile, though slight, remains on your lips long after you have turned away. You take a genuine pleasure in communing with another man or woman. I saw this happen time and again and thought, if only I could have a person like that on my side, I would see my every idea through to completion. I meant to broach this very subject during my visit of yesterday morning, but my purpose was mislaid, as you will recall. I was nervous to face you, frankly, and I thought a drink would give me courage.’ He lowered his head at the memory. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this morning I awoke in my hovel suffering extreme shame. This was not a new occurrence for me, but today there was something wholly disabling about it. The shame had a heaviness I had never experienced, and hope to never experience again. It was as though I had hit a wall, reached my very limit of self-loathing. Some would call this an epiphany. Call it what you will. But I faced the day today and have vowed to change my life, to cleanse my body, to cleanse my mind, to share my secrets with
you,
because I know you are a good man, and because a good man is the thing I need most in my life, just now.’

Before I could respond to the passionate oration, Warm pulled from his pockets several loose, much-abused papers, and he laid these before me, imploring me to look upon them, which I did, finding page after page of scribbled, intricate numerical lists, figures, and scientific calculations imparting I did not know what. At last I had to admit my ignorance to him. ‘I’m afraid I have no idea what all of this represents,’ I said. ‘It is the bedrock of a momentous discovery,’ he told me. ‘And what is the discovery?’ ‘It is perhaps the most significant scientific event of our lifetime.’ ‘And what is the event?’ Nodding, he collected the papers into an untidy stack, pushing this away beneath his coat. With the corners of the pages peeking over his lapel, he chuckled, regarding me as though I were a very clever man indeed. ‘You are asking for a demonstration,’ he said knowingly. ‘I am not,’ I responded. ‘You will have one, all the same.’ He pulled a watch from his coat and stood to leave. ‘I have to go now, but I will visit you in the morning at your hotel. I will make my demonstration, at the conclusion of which I will have your opinion, and your decision.’ ‘Decision in regards to what?’ I asked, for I had no clue what he was actually proposing. But he only shook his head and said, ‘We can discuss it tomorrow morning. Is this agreeable with your calendar?’ I told the funny man it was, and he gripped my hand, hurrying off to some other crucial location. I watched him pushing through the restaurant, and I saw that he was laughing. And then he was gone.

*
No sooner had I risen from bed than Warm knocked on my door. His appearance had improved further in that he was wearing a new top hat. When I commented on this he removed it to show me the hat’s every detail, the interior stitching, the softness of its calfskin band, and what he called its ‘general richness and fineness.’ I inquired what he had done with his old hat and he became cagey. I pressed him and he admitted to dropping it over an unsuspecting pigeon sunning itself in the street. The pigeon could not escape from under the weight, and so Warm had the guilty pleasure of watching the topper run away from him, rounding a corner for parts unknown. As he told me this story I spied a covered crate at his feet. I asked what this was for, and he raised his finger, and said, ‘Ah.’

He readied himself for the enigmatic demonstration, and soon the crate’s contents sat on the small dining table in the center of my room. Here is what I saw before me. A low-sided wooden box, approximately three feet long by two feet across, a burlap sack containing fresh, strong-smelling earth, a red-velvet sack, and a tin canteen, placed upright. The curtains were drawn and I crossed over to open them, but Warm said he preferred them as they were. ‘It is necessary both for reasons of privacy and for the demonstration to come off most effectively,’ he explained. I returned to the table and watched him pour two-thirds of the earth into the box, smoothing and packing it until it lay level. He then passed me the velvet sack and asked that I inspect its contents. I found it to be filled with gold dust and said as much. He took the sack back and emptied the dust into the box. Of course this shocked me, and I asked what he was doing. He would not say, but instructed that I should commit to memory the shape of the dust (he had poured it out in a tidy circle). He covered this over with the remaining one-third of the earth and spent a full five minutes packing it down, slapping it with his hands so that it was firm as clay. He expended no small amount of energy doing this and was perspiring freely by this point. Now he fetched my washbasin and held this over the earth, slowly pouring the water out so that it nearly met the rim of the box. Having accomplished these curious tasks, he stood back smiling at my doubtless puzzled expression. At last he said, ‘Here is a model of a prospector’s river diggings. Here we have in miniature that which has driven half the world mad. The principal challenge for the prospector is this: How does he get at that which he
knows
is just beneath his feet? The only answers to the question are hard labor, and good fortune. The former is taxing, the latter, unreliable. For several years now I have been searching out a third method, a surer, simpler one.’ He held up the canteen and unscrewed its top. ‘Correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Morris, but with this formula I believe I have accomplished just that.’ He handed the canteen to me and I asked if I were meant to drink it. ‘Unless you were after a painful ordeal of death, I would advise against it,’ he told me. ‘It is not a tonic?’ I asked. ‘It is a
diviner,
’ he said, and how strange his voice was as he spoke these words, how odd and haunted, his throat constricted, his pulse fluttering at his temples. Bowing his head then, he emptied the canteen into the box. It was a stinking, purplish liquid. It was thicker than the water but quickly assimilated and disappeared into it. Thirty long seconds passed us by and I stared hard at the water but could see no difference. I raised my eyes to watch Warm’s. His lids were half closed, and I thought he looked somewhat sleepy. I opened my mouth to offer him my condolences, for his experiment was apparently a failure, when I noticed in his eyes the reflection of a gathering, golden glow. When I returned my attention to the box my heart leapt into my throat, for there before me, I swear before God in heaven, the ring of gold was illuminated and shining through the heavy layer of black earth!

My reaction to the demonstration was one of complete amazement, and my many sputtering declarations and questions pleased Warm to no end. He soon fell to explaining his plans for the liquid, which are as follows. To dam a secluded section of river and under cover of night, fill the waters with the formula—in greater quantity, obviously—and then, once it has taken hold, to wade the river and remove the gold at his leisure. The glowing, he explained, lasted only precious minutes, but in that time he might cull what would take him weeks were he to use the traditional methods of extraction. Once he had played out a particular segment of river he would move to another, then another, this repeated until he made his pile, and then he would sell the formula’s secret ingredients for a million and spend the rest of his days in what he called the ‘silken arms of glad success.’ By this point I was fairly reeling. All told, it was the most singularly impressive invention I had ever heard of. My only remaining question was slow in coming. I did not want to offend the man or undo the high feelings in the room but it was something that needed addressing, and so I simply came out with it. ‘Why is it you are being so candid with me?’ I asked. ‘How do you know I will not betray your confidences?’ ‘I have already explained my reasons for engaging you,’ Warm replied. ‘I need another man to see this plan through, and I believe you are that man.’ ‘But I am currently receiving a wage to keep watch over you, that you might be killed!’ I exclaimed. ‘Yes, that’s a fact, but let me ask you this. What did the Commodore give as his reason for wanting me dead?’ ‘He says you are a thief.’ ‘And what is it I have stolen?’ ‘This he did not mention.’ Warm spoke emphatically. ‘He could
not
say, because it is a bald lie. He wants me dead for the reason that I would not give over the ingredients of my gold-finding liquid. Six months back I approached him in Oregon City, requesting funding for a trip to California. I gave a demonstration similar to the one you have just seen and made him an offer I thought was most generous. He would underwrite an expedition, and in return would receive half of the profit. At first he agreed, and promised me full cooperation and support. But when I would not share the recipe he became enraged, and pointed a pistol at my face. He was drunken, and could not focus. When he swayed I snatched a paperweight from his desk and threw it at him. A lucky shot, knocked him dead in the forehead and brought the great man to his knees. As I beat my hasty exit, taking those carpeted steps three at a time, I heard his voice come booming after me. “You are not free of me, Warm. My men will take your formula by force and cut you down to size!” I believed him. And I was not surprised when you arrived, Mr. Morris. What surprised me, and what surprises me still, is that a gentleman such as yourself would elect to spend his lifetime abetting a killer and bully.’

The story rang true, all the more so when I remembered the Commodore’s bandaged head wound from six months past. Warm’s words gave me pause, then, and I paced the room awhile, taking stock of things and pondering the possibilities. At last I asked him, not a little desperately, ‘But what do you actually expect of me in all this? What can you possibly hope I’ll accomplish for you?’ ‘It is clear, to my mind,’ he said. ‘I would like for you to go into business with me as a fifty-fifty partner. You will invest whatever money you have toward our maiden expedition, for the cost of food alone would eradicate my small savings. I will need to borrow your quarters to prepare the formula in bulk, and you will assist me in preparing it. Also you will assist me in the actual physical labor once we have set up camp at the river. But most important, you will become the face and voice of the operation, for you have a gift of communication that has proven elusive to me. You will deal with patents and lawyers and contracts and every horrible manner of man-made entanglement—just the type of thing I would bumble terrifically. That will all come later, though. For now, we would enter the wilderness together and see how the formula actually works.’ ‘And what do you think the Commodore would make of my newfound allegiance?’ I wondered. ‘Do you understand fully what you are asking of me?’ At this, he approached and laid his hands on my shoulders. ‘You are no errand runner for a tyrant, Mr. Morris. You are a better man than this. Come with me into the world and reclaim your independence. You stand to gain so much, and riches are the least of it.’ My heart became heavy at these words, and Warm, understanding my need to dissect the matter, left me to my thoughts, and said he would return in the morning for my answer. I sat forlornly upon the bed, the box still resting on the table, its glowing light growing ever dimmer, and then disappearing entirely.