On My Strike

Pike had gone up to the glass three hours back, and the last plank over the newer pipe's mouth stood empty. Nothing sat across the mouth now but loose clay going soft in the runoff. Dark hadn't brought the heat down any. It was near a hundred still, no wind, and the lantern on its stake made a yellow ball in the steam that lit nothing past itself. Ruth and Abel were on the bank. Jonas stood at the edge of the clay with the bell on his belt.

Cole pulled his shovel out of the wall and laid it flat. Three hours of throwing, and his hands didn't want to close around anything thinner than a handle. The pipe wrench lay on the plank where Pike had left it. The rider had boxed Pike's blank, since by Company rule a blank couldn't be struck, only fenced in. Cole took the wrench and waded in.

The runoff was bathwater at the shin and hotter toward the lip. Under the stone, where Pike's boot had been all evening, the valve's square stem stood up out of the silt, crusted pale. Cole set the wrench on it, slid the cheater bar of old ditch iron over the handle and set his boots.

"Water's hot. Stem's crusted. It'll turn."

He heaved. The stem ground a quarter inch, and steam rolled up around his knees.

Jonas came into the water beside him. Cole saw the bell come off the belt and had no time to turn his head before Jonas struck it, hard, a hand's width from his ear. The note went up the glass and hung there. Under it the stem gave a dry tick, and the steam thinned enough to show the mouth drawing a slow swirl of silt toward the clinic corner.

Jonas held up the slate. The boot lace was knotted around its cord, and the key swung off it.

RING FIRST. THEN TURN.

All the way up the path Cole had kept his eyes on stones. Now he looked at the old man's face, thin and flat in the lantern light, and kept looking, and leaned until the stem ground another quarter. He held out his palm.

"Rung. Stem's moving. Hand me the lace."

Jonas let the palm hang. He laid his own hand flat on the stem beside the bar, struck the bell once more, and wrote.

RING THE SHARES. THEN THE KEY.

At the clinic corner a dark wet line had started along the foot of the floorboards. It was creeping.

Cole took one hand off the bar and wiped it down his shirt, which did nothing; the shirt was as wet as the hand. Then he said it to the glass, loud, and Jonas could read it off his mouth or not.

"Conservatory draws first. Mine draws after. That's the notch, and I dug it."

He drove. The stem went a quarter more and jammed hard at three-quarters shut. A thread of silt still slipped from the mouth toward the clinic.

Jonas set the bell on the lip, waded over and pressed his palm on Cole's hand to feel the stall. Then he unwound the lace from his wrist. Cole's hand on the bar wanted to come off it.

Jonas dropped the key into the water by Cole's boot. Cole's open hand was right there. The slate turned toward the clinic corner.

THREAD STILL RUNNING. FINISH IT.

The key sank. The lace floated loose and drifted toward the mouth.

He shut his fist on it without looking and stood, wrench braced on his hip.

"Stem's stalled on grit. Put your hand on the bar with mine."

Jonas laid his palm over Cole's fist, lace and all, and leaned his thin weight in. The grit ground into both their hands. He struck the bell against the iron, as if the stem could hear it.

TOGETHER. ON MY STRIKE.

Cole set his boots and watched Jonas's eyes for them to drop.

"Strike it."

The bell hit iron. Jonas let it fall on its cord and threw himself down with Cole.

The stem ground through and seated with a hollow knock Cole felt in his teeth. At the mouth the thread went thin, and thinner, and stopped. The steam lay flat. At the clinic corner the dark line quit where it was.

Jonas's hand stayed on his. Neither of them let go of the bar.