Murdoch in the Jungle

by Romantic Nerd

In 1904 Detective Murdoch and Constable Crabtree investigate a murder involving the the meat-packing industry. Undercover as hobos, they encounter Upton Sinclair who is researching his novel, "The Jungle." Sinclair helps them with their investigation and to learn how to survive in this, dark, depressing and soul-torturing world of the early twentieth century JUNGLE.

11. Chapter 11:The Law of the JungleM

Murdoch in the Jungle_Chapter 10_The Law of the Jungle

(This was not the first time. It had happened once before, even had been spoken of, thus exposing its presence out in the light of day, back before William and Julia had been married, while William had worked a case and recovered from injuries incurred when he had been beaten with a baseball bat by the O'Shea brothers. Leslie Garland had showed up and threatened Julia in her office at the asylum, unaware that William was present in the room with her).

Leslie pretended to admire her flowers in the center of the room. Not looking directly at her he said, "I've come to deliver some good news – I've been fired… But I suppose you already know that, don't you?" his eyes now honing in on her with his question, revealing their calculated anger.

Sitting up taller in her desk chair, Julia held her ground, "I didn't know what the consequences would be."

Leslie stepped closer, the action intending to intimidate, and said sarcastically, "But I don't imagine you regret doing what you did."

"I most certainly do not," Julia replied immediately, firmly.

Leslie fumed as he started his list of complaints, "You've destroyed my good name…"

Defiantly, Julia interrupted, "I think you did that all on your own," her comment locking his jaw and curling his fists.

William, having had enough, for the aggressor was now too viscerally close to his fiancée to be tolerated, stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room and invaded Leslie Garland's space. "Mr. Garland," his tone commanding, "You'll be leaving Doctor Ogden's office now…" he said, advancing forward, his chest puffed out, his dominance backing Leslie into submission, forcing the man to stammer into the table, wobbling and rattling the vase of flowers as a result. Her defender stared fiercely into Garland's eyes and said, "And if you ever come back, I will take this badge off and I will deal with you."

Jumping to appease the protector's onslaught, Leslie declared, "Detective, I was simply explaining…"

Still marching into him, already so close to Garland that the man could feel his breath, his voice dangerously low, magnifying their physical closeness, William quietly roared his question, the warning obliterating Garland's nerve, "Did you not hear me?" he asked, tearing the would-be adversary into shreds.

Concern trembled across Garland's face, and his retreat became more hurried, as he seemed unable to answer, stumbling his back into the doorframe, having missed the open exit…

"Goodbye, Mr. Garland," William demanded, blowing the man out of her office with his ferocious gale. Successful, he took a deep breath and turned back to face her.

Enthralled, feeling aroused and titillated by this side of the man she loved, Julia stood and approached her champion. "William!" she exclaimed with a slight giggle and shake of her head, showing her bewilderment, "I must say, that was most surprising…" Flirtatiously, her fingers stroked his tie, tingling him to his core, "And more than a little impressive," she added.

His recent confrontations with the dangerous and brutal underworld of the docks had forced an adjustment in him, a shuffling, and ultimately an incorporation of new beliefs into his world order. This profound change in his psyche was revealed when he replied to her admiration, explaining his behavior to her by saying that, "Sometimes one must employ the law of the jungle."

True, his making of this statement had resulted in a shared fall into laughter, for such a statement was quite uncharacteristic of the William that they both knew. But, even though their colluded reaction of surprise and merriment with the discovery of his newfound awareness had served to release some of the pressure its presence had caused, it was clear that a deep and important shift had occurred within him. That was the first time.

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Although it was not uncommon for William and Julia to fall asleep in each other's arms, they rarely woke up that way. Invariably, one or both of them would waken in the middle of the night and change positions. Thus, William was surprised to wake up and find they were tangled together, Julia's head still on his chest and her pregnant belly and thigh draped over him. Relieved that he had managed to wake up before the sunrise, for he needed to leave early today, he was glad that he would be able to turn off the alarm clock before it rang and woke Julia up as well. He took a deep breath, preparing to find a way to move without waking her, but also because he felt a heavy tug at his heart. He would be doing the one thing that caused her the most stress – going undercover, and all the evidence told him that she was having a particularly hard time dealing with his absence, and his being in potential danger, when they were this near to her due date – now little more than six weeks away.

Deciding there was no guaranteed way to rise without stirring her, he chose to try to slip out from under her, towards his side of the bed. Before he had even moved an inch, merely tightening his muscles to begin his departure, he felt her arm and her leg clamp tighter around him. A complaining groan broke the silence in the darkness. Clearly, she did not want to let him go.

Compassion flooded his heart, rendering the tenderness in his voice as he said, "Julia, I have to go," the words resonating deeply inside both of them, vibrating destiny's tuning fork, reminiscent of the words' portence so many years before, when their utterance had been accompanied by his tear-filled eyes, the last time their eyes touched before she left him for Buffalo. Her response to their utterance now was to hold on to him with even more force. Yes, this was going to be very difficult indeed. Rather than fight against it, he yielded, rolling even closer to her and wrapping her securely in his arms. His next deep breath guided her familiar scent deeply down into him, registering somehow in his soul. It was inescapable – he loved her more than life itself, and she him. And yet, he knew he would do it. He knew that she knew as well. He would go.

He rolled even further over, pushing her onto her side, opening a path behind him to ultimately move away, while moving closer to her. He pushed further, rolling her onto her back, and found himself becoming aroused as she lie so weak and soft underneath him. Instincts took over as warmth filled his chest, and his groin.

His demanding breathing rattled against her ear, as the morning stubble on his cheek scratched tantalizingly across her jaw and her cheek, and his fingers found her face, grasped it, locking it in place, before his lips took hers passionately. Her moan lured him towards his lustful horizons, deepening his kiss. Ultimately, he would taste all of her, touch all of her, bask in each moan … in each cry, swim in each distinctive odor, his senses seemingly heightened by the peril he faced, by the unconscious awareness that it may be the last time. Then she would return the favor, driving him over the edge of ecstasy as well.

Afterwards, they lie together, fulfilled, waiting for their bliss and reality to merge. The alarm would sound soon, the pre-dawn light now kissing the room, so he told her again, that he needed to go.

Wanting to feel his heart beating against her a while longer, knowing she would miss his smell, and his voice, and the feeling of his breath on her, she asked, urged, "Not until the alarm … at least not till then." Only a few moments later, the bell tolled and he reached over to quiet its dreaded proclamation. His deep breath announced the immanence of it, his leaving. With a gentle kiss to her hair, breathing her deeply in one final time, he rose, dressed and left, without a word, without a promise to be careful, knowing such words would not suffice to comfort her, knowing she had accepted the pain and the worry as inevitable and unavoidable.

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He quietly closed their front door against the bitter cold and ripping wind. Hearing the crunching of his own footsteps in the newly fallen snow, he reached up to nurture the ache in his shoulder. Now heading back into danger on the same case, the memory of the pain, both physical and emotional, from when he had hung on the meat-hook between two pig carcasses, now just a week ago, driving him to coach himself to be alert. He waited on the sidewalk at the end of their path. "Don't look back," he told himself, hoping to avoid the worry, and the guilt. He envisioned how beautiful their new home, wrapped in Christmas decorations, would look softly cloaked in the clean, white snow. Instead, he peered down the street, "Concentrate on the task at hand," his own voice advised as he looked for the horse and carriage, squinting into the low morning sun.

The cab pulled up. He greeted George as he stepped in, taking a seat next to the constable. "You look wonderful sir," George declared, "Very convincing."

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Julia dropped the curtain back down to rest over the window, now quite a while after his cab had pulled out of sight. She looked to the bed in their guest bedroom, the one in which her sister had recently stayed, in the room she had rushed to, hoping to get a final glimpse of William before he left her, possibly forever. "My God, I miss Ruby too," she thought. The emptiness, the loneliness, felt markedly worse than she had expected. She reminded herself that Isaac would be coming over to check on her later. She would be grateful for the distraction. Subconsciously her hand covered her belly as she reminded herself that she was not alone. "What shall we do till Isaac gets here, hmm, little one?" she asked out loud. "Breakfast," was the answer that came. Happily, she found herself excited about the idea, "Some bacon and French toast, I think."

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"Do you think so George?" the detective asked. "It was a challenge finding these old, tattered clothes, particularly the coat – I purchased it from the charity drive at my church. I actually had to tear them apart and soil them in the boiler room to get the look," he added.

"As did I sir! But I didn't think of the boiler room… I actually used the back area by the garbage cans," the constable explained.

"That explains the rather realistic and pungent odor," the detective declared with a smile, "Actually, it helps complete the whole hobo ensemble, George."

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Although the younger man had a nearly ten year-advantage over him, William was the one who first arrived within reach of the open-door and thus, had to heave, with much more effort than he had imagined it would take, he had to heave himself up into the opened doorway of the moving train car. He rushed to turn back around and reach out to help George, extending his hand backwards, out into the ripping wind. "Come on George! Give it all you've got," he encouraged.

Contact between their hands with a "slap!" And huge grunts! And then George was aboard too.

"Thank you sir," George yelled unable to breathe, and too loudly, for he had not yet adjusted, and he was finding the world around him oddly disorienting and dizzying from the exertion, or possibly the effect was a result of his trying to align the speed of motion he was currently carrying in the moving car, which felt strangely still, with the reality that he was actually still hurling through space. He reached up to cup his ears, the pain from the freezing of the wind registering as a burn.

William, less winded, perused the empty train car, answering, "The snow made it harder," receiving hearty nods from George in response.

Soon discovering it was particularly cold in the empty car, and hoping to find people who might have known Adomas Baltavesky, they moved backwards from car to car along the moving train, eventually arriving at a car that was occupied by a few other men. This car was also empty of any freight, but it was significantly warmer. William quickly assessed that it was an empty refrigerated car, and so it was insulated. Being wintertime, there would not have been much need to load ice in the compartment he was eyeing up in the roof of the car, because the frozen meat that would have been stored inside would stay cold simply because of the cold temperatures outside matching with those inside. But with three men in it, and now five, their body heat was helping raise the inside temperature, and the insulation, which was designed to keep the cold in, was actually keeping their heat in too.

None of the other men looked up at them, let alone spoke. Each one seemed to be, 'alone.' Deciding that questioning hobos about their victim was the whole reason they had come here, William decided to venture over and strike up a conversation. He introduced himself, using the name Henry Codrum, which he had previously thought up based on his middle name and reversing the sounds of his last name. Then, unfortunately realizing that he had not discussed with George the name George had chosen to use, after he had started to introduce him, he paused after saying, "And this is George…"

Quick on his feet, acting like he'd had the name his entire life, George completed his sentence, "Flowers – George Flowers, nice to meet you." He held out his right hand for a handshake…

Surprisingly sending a sudden chill down William's spine as he had a flash of memory of Julia showing him the "handshake method," of killing someone. He calmed himself, asserting that the odds of the very first man they encountered being Adomas' American-spy killer, and that this killer would also know who they really were and that they were searching for him, were far too unlikely to worry about.

None of the men seated in the train car offered to respond. How could it be that they were being so shunned? William wondered if the men could already tell that they were not really hobos, the thought worrying him. "Perhaps hobos are generally just that unfriendly to each other," he suggested to himself, fighting the instinct to wrinkle his face with his doubt.

One of the men said, without looking up at them, "You fellas 'grabbin' scenery?"

William and George looked at each other, clearly neither of them had a clue. William's mind raced! "You look at the scenery if you're a tourist, mostly," he thought, "probably a hobo slang term for being inexperienced at hoboing," he figured.

Hurrying to answer, William said, "We haven't been at it long, no. Had some hard times is all."

Following the detective's lead, George nodded in agreement, "That's right, sir," he added, "Could happen to anyone, especially in times like these."

The man who had spoken finally lifted his head, looking fierce-eyed at George. The man's ice-blue eyes were striking. "You call him, "sir?" he questioned, suspiciously.

Panic pumped through William's heart! Watching on, he marveled at George, who replied instantly, and confidently.

George turned, looked at William, and said, "Never called him anything but. You can't tell by looking at him, but this man here is brilliant… Invents things… Figures things out… Sir, show 'em your 'backsack!"

Growing uncomfortable with the praise, William blushed slightly. "It's nothing George. They won't care about that," he offered.

"Well then I'll show 'em the knife you made for me," George replied, expertly drawing attention away from their questionable identities and onto the item in his pocket. George pulled out the folded up knife and started by opening the spoon attachment.

All three of the men seated on the floor were now looking up, interested. "George had gotten them!" William could see it, the men trusted them now, at least, much more than at first.

One of the other men offered to buy the knife from George, but he declined. They were invited to sit, and although the conversation wasn't lively, they were talking, and eventually William told them that one of the things they hoped to do was find a friend. He showed the men Adomas' picture (the one Ieva had had in her room), but none of them had seen him. They suggested that they try the next car back. There were a couple of guys in there, and maybe one of them had seen their man.

There were two men seemingly sleeping in the next car. Just like the other men, these two also did not seem to be traveling together, each in opposing corners at the far end of the car. Quickly getting the idea that these hobo-types were slow to warm-up to new people, William and George shared a look, signaling to each other that they thought it best to stay at their end of the car for now. The two of them sat, together, on the floor. Not much to do now, they settled down, each following their own trains of thought.

After a while, George stood up, wanting to stretch his legs. William joined him and they ventured out through the front of the car, into the cold, sunny daylight. It was noisy standing on the tiny platform between train cars, but they still tried to talk in shouted whispers, hoping not to be overheard.

"Do you think we should go ahead and introduce ourselves when we go back in?" George asked the detective.

"No, not yet. Too obvious," William suggested, receiving a nod. They both stared out into the landscape – it was rustic, quite beautiful. William tried a joke, "It seems we are, "catching scenery" after all," he said.

Giving him a little chuckle, mostly to be polite, George answered, "You are right about that sir." He took a deep breath, taking in the country scent. "I think, though, that they said, "grabbing scenery," if I remember it right," George corrected.

William was impressed. It was usually him who surprised people with his phenomenal ability to remember such details. "I believe you are right, constab…" – William stopped himself from referring to George the way he was accustomed to, it would most definitely give them away if he did not break that habit and quick. "…George," he finished with a smile.

Returning their eyes to the view, William admired the way the ripples in the lake caught and flashed the light. Then, all of a sudden, he had an awful thought!

His tone a blend of alert, and scolding, and regret, "William said, "George… shouldn't the lake be on the other side?"

It should have been! As they traveled westward to Winnipeg, Lake Huron should have been on their left – to the south, but it was on their right, to the north. They must have hopped the wrong train! They weren't going to Winnipeg anymore! Nope! They were in the USA! And this was not good.

Discussing it at length, they finally accepted their fate, William reasoning that it might be of use to be asking after Adomas in America anyway, for the man had been killed with a method used by American spies. They headed back into their train car.

A hobo who had not previously been in the car was now sitting in a corner right near the door when they came in. The man looked up at them briefly, then shifted his bindle and looked back down at the floor. William and George sat in the opposite corner, now all four corners of the train car occupied. Briefly, they talked, nearly in whispers, about how long it would likely be until they got to various towns they thought to be on their route. But soon, they grew quiet, and turned inward. "Colder in this car. Not insulated," William began his train of thought.

After a few hours, George noticed he was getting hungry. He had packed a few carrots and some bread, and even some cheese. Figuring that the rations would really only last their first day, he had brought enough to share. He looked over at the detective, expecting to find him sleeping, thinking he would offer him some of his delicacies, and found instead that his companion was deep in thought, his eyes down on a photograph in his lap – of Dr. Ogden.

George leaned over slightly, and studied the picture, being taken by the romantic undertones of the detective's state even more so upon really looking at it. It was of Dr. Ogden, and of course, she looked exceedingly pretty in the pose. "Rather large photograph," he thought, the photograph appearing to be about 5" by 8" inches in dimension. It would nearly fill a pocket, and, especially considering their circumstances, for they each only had one bag – in the detective's case it was his ingenious 'backsack,' – and whatever pockets they each had. He noticed that the good doctor looked to be a bit younger… The picture must be somewhat old… Suddenly, George recognized the photograph! It was really old, from an old case! The detective had needed a fake photograph, of a woman, to use to trick suspects – "Oh yeah," he thought to himself, "suspects from the theater," the detective had used the fake photo as a ploy to trick the stage actors, all suspects, into giving him their fingermarks. They would hold the picture when he asked them if they had ever seen the woman in the photo, claiming she was his main suspect… "That very same photo in the detective's lap now, of Dr. Ogden" – and then after the suspect had touched it, they would have left their marks on it. "He must have kept her picture all these years," George realized.

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"Not even Plan C!" Julia thought to herself as she walked away from their front door, having just said good-bye to Isaac, the doctor overseeing her pregnancy, the man who would be preforming the surgery for her Cesarean section, and one of her very best friends in the world. Her mind dwelled on Isaac's visit, and its results, while she cleaned up. "Maybe it's a good thing that William is away on this… undercover escapade… after all," she continued her musings, "It will certainly be easier to abstain if we aren't together."

After completing her tasks, she sat on the couch in the living room, and read, tucked under a blanket, already missing William's fires – "in more ways than one," she giggled to herself. She was feeling the new challenge of following another of Isaac's instructions, to hold back on the alcohol. Admitting that his concerns made sense, that research showed that alcohol lowers the heart rate, and thus her drinking spirits might result in a lower metabolism and growth rate for their child, she steeled her resolve, sipping on her tea. She sighed, "No William, no work, no sex, and no alcohol," she pondered, "What else is there?!"

Taking up her newest medical journal, reminding herself how exciting she had found the paper on gender and genetics to be, she tried to cheer herself up, "Well, Isaac said to cut back on the alcohol, not that I shouldn't have any – and…" and with the thought her eyes dropped down to her belly, her hand rubbing the little life inside through the blanket and her clothing and her body tissues, and she smiled, "And, don't worry," she said aloud, "Our life is absolute magic, because of you little one."

While she drifted deeper into her reading, she fondled the locket around her neck. It was the one that she had recently shown William, like Ieva's locket in many ways. It was the one that had become magnetized when she and William had hugged good-bye in the carriage, when she was leaving him for Buffalo. Inside, it held their photographs, face to face, now clicked closed, lying nested close together, almost as if locked in a kiss. William had been so touched when he discovered the locket – it reminding him of even another way that their relationship paralleled that of Adomas and Ieva. He had seemed especially taken by her choice of this picture of him, having had cut it out from a newspaper after he had returned from Bristol, the article sending the detective accolades for having had saved the Queen. Having had put the locket together after he had come back from being missing and presumed dead, after over a month, after she had been so very, very devastated by her fears that he had been killed, and after she knew from the experience that, really, she couldn't live her life, or at least she couldn't be truly happy, if she weren't with him. She wore it now in the hope that he would come back to her this time as well.

Having completely devoured every detail of the article on transverse Cesarean sections, she had moved on to the second article she had been intrigued by, the one on finding a part of an individual's genes that determines one's sex. Losing focus, her mind drifted while reading. The train of thought began with a specific memory, of the look of utter shock on William's face when he slowly, then suddenly, understood that the mustached man standing in front of him in the Gentlemen's Club was actually HER, prompting Julia to giggle out loud to herself. No longer reading the words, she rode the thought, it taking her first backwards to when she invited the detective, the Inspector, and Constable Crabtree to her morgue to see something important about the victim who had been poisoned in the Masonic Lodge. Before she had even had a chance to pull down the sheet covering the body, she saw them grasp the surprise she had warned them about, clearly identifying the two bumps on the victim's chest as breasts, thus seeing that the physical evidence made it clear – he was a she.

Oh how she had enjoyed the men's' perplexion over it all. "Ironic," she thought to herself after her reading, "females having two X gene parts while males have only one - somewhat akin to the number of… bumps each sex has," on the two different types of bodies. Her mind threatened to run away with how much she liked William's one bump, although she had quickly pulled herself out of the spicy, randy imaginings.

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The newer arrival, the man across from them in the train car, commented out of the blue from across the way, "The way you look at that picture, that way you are mesmerized by that one particular 'bale of straw,' – I knew a fella like that… You Catholic too?"

"I am," William responded, looking the man in the eye, secretly grateful to be back on the case.

"I heard a little accent, when you two were talking earlier. This guy was Lithuanian… not you though?" he asked.

Knowing it was ultimately safest to keep one's lies as close as possible to the truth, and deciding it was best to keep it simple, William answered, "No, Canadian."

The man raised an eyebrow, "Oh, a lumberjack then," he concluded.

Wondering how the man knew such a detail, then concluding that the man must believe most Canadians worked as lumberjacks, William responded, "I was… um, a long time ago."

William's confusion gave him away, now the man knowing that he, and probably the one with him as well, did not know the common hobo terminology, he clarified, "No, I mean, you come from Canada, that's how the term is used here on the trains. Now, if you really were a lumberjack, then I'd call you, "Peasoup."

"Oh," William replied. Unconsciously, his mouth wrinkled at a corner, and he thought, "Have to admit – we did eat a lot of pea soup in the lumber camps." His instincts told him it was safe to soften his defenses with this man. He liked him.

The man continued, "Seems men that end up here because of a woman…" his eyes dropped to the photograph of Julia in William's lap, "…have it the worst." He went on, telling them a long, painful story. "Another Lithuanian guy – a fella named Jurgis, well he lost his wife – and this guy loved her somethin' special – she died after a nasty bank scheme, and cause of the abusive meat industry too, well these damn capitalist types took everything from him, left him penniless, broken down in body and spirit, wouldna give him a job and he was never gonna get one, homeless and with a pregnant wife and a young son… And then the man's wife died in childbirth, he comes home to find her dead with the baby breach, dead inside of her… And he hadn't a been there for her, cause he'd been out drinkin' the rest of their money…"

The storyteller paused and shook his head before he went on, "Things had gotten so bad, and he had just found out, that his wife, the woman he loved so much he would have cut off his arm for her, well she had sold her body months ago… for a bunch of chickens cause they were starving, and the baby that killed her might not of even been his… And then this fella's young son drowns in a flooded street – You believe that, conditions in the Chicago stockyards are so bad a kid can drown in the street!? Well, this guy, Jurgis, he completely lost it – ended up here on the trains. For years he's still hoboing, lonely, broken, had no chance, really, cause he got blacklisted during the strike, by those three toffs, you know 'em, Armour, Durham and Brown?"

William nodded. The man looked over at George, but must have decided not to explain, and went on, "I tell you now, if you got anything to do with any unions, you best keep it to yourself. For him it meant that the police got involved – the crooked ones, the bulls working for toffs running the show, and them coppers and government officials, and them meat guys are all thick as thieves, you see. Best I know, Jurgis is still in jail, waiting to be hung for doing nothing."

He paused in his long story, his eyes glancing back and forth between William and George. He seemed to be checking, peering deeply inside of each man, almost as if he was testing their very humanity with his gaze. William was relieved, somehow knowing that he and George had passed the test, particularly once the man took a deep breath and continued. Further, with the case in mind, it had not escaped William's notice that there was a possibility that this man knew Adomas. He spoke of a Catholic man, a Lithuanian, and a man who spent a lot of his time looking at a photograph of a woman… All things also true for their victim!

The man broke William's thoughts, starting again, "Now the first guy I was telling you two about… My name is Sin, by the way…"

"Henry," William said with a nod.

"I'm George," George added.

Sin went back to his next story, "Well, that first guy I was telling you about spent every waking hour gazing at his wife's picture, he was Lithuanian too, and Catholic, like you Henry… And you know, he wore a wedding ring. It's so out of the ordinary, when a man wears a ring – you and Adomas the only ones I've ever seen…"

Both William and George bolted upright with a twitch with the mentioning of Adomas' name! William quickly grabbed at his ring finger, hoping to get Sin's attention on it instead of noticing their reactions. "I've known one or two…" William said as quickly as possible. He looked to George, his eyes holding to George's, centering him, "I mean, besides me. James Pendrick did," he said.

Nodding, "You're right sir, he did," George said, instantly regretting once again calling the detective "sir."

Sin took a breath, preparing, it seemed, to ask why George would call Henry "sir…"

"And there was that young business man wore a ring – that's how the Constabulary fellas caught wind of his scheme in the end," William said stopping Sin from asking. He nodded slightly at George, "You remember, he and his wife almost got away with quite a scam, pretended the man she had killed in one of her delusionary moments was her husband… but actually he was the husband's rich business partner…. That's the very day I was thinking of just now," William said, glancing down at Julia's picture, "the day myself and the doctor, uh, well and you were there too George, when we saw their plot get foiled."

There was a spark of recognition in George's eyes. He had remembered. It was actually the detective's wedding day of all things. The detective and the good doctor had almost run out of the church to catch the murderers before they took their vows. George looked down at the detective's ring, remembering how he, himself, had almost lost its mate, the one on Dr. Ogden's finger, back on that special day.

They both looked back at Sin, ready for him to continue his story. In their chests however, their hearts were still flying. They had found someone who knew Adomas! Listening, calming themselves, they would wait to ask the questions pertinent to the case as the opportunities arose.

Sin went back to his tale, "Now this man's wife was alive, but he was hurt'in bad, so desperate for money I think he'd a done anything. His little son was sick and he needed money bad."

William asked, "Any chance this man… Adomas, you said?"

Sin nodded, but now the two undercover hobos were in control of their reactions.

"Any chance he was from Toronto?" William asked.

Taking the opportunity to teach them more about being hobos, Sin interrupted, "Now see, here you'd say you're from "Hogtown."

George added, "We say that too – in Toronto… sometimes."

They told Sin that they had a friend from Hogtown, who had that same name - Adomas…

"Adomas isn't the most common of names, I'll give you that," Sin replied. "You know, believe it or not his wife was named…"

"Ieva," William rushed to answer before he could say it, "like Adam and Eve," the detective in him figuring that showing Sin how familiar he and George were with Adomas would make their "looking for their friend" story more convincing. It would help the man trust them.

"Yes, yes. Adam and Eve," Sin said, nodding his head with a smile. It seemed he loved the ironies and intricacies one finds in life. He looked once again at William's photograph of Julia in his lap and shared his musing, "It appeared to me they must of loved each other – that way – too."

All eyes now down on the picture, William took a deep breath and said, "We're looking for him with word – his son died and his wife needs him." Finding he did not have to pretend or act in order to be convincing, for he felt the familiar ache in his heart, William looked up at Sin, caught and held his eyes and asked, "Can you help us find him?"

Sin cleared his throat. There was a quick frown, before he shifted his weight to get up off of the floor.

"Oh, that did it – too much – we've lost him!" William thought with a panic, believing Sin was preparing to leave.

The tiniest smile poked up at the corners of William's mouth however, when instead, Sin came and sat down next to George. He spoke quietly, plainly not wanting to be overheard. "I connected him with a cop – we'd say "bull," in Chicago – got him a job with Armour. Ain't seen him since." Sin pulled a small book out of his bindle, and opened it, revealing that he had been taking extensive notes.

Right away George thought it looked like the kind of notes he takes when he's researching an idea for a book. Right now in his bindle, actually George's "bindle" was more like a stickless bindle, having just his pillow and belongings rolled up in a blanket, but in George's bindle he had a similar book, although his was still mostly lacking in pen strokes at this stage.

Finding the right page in, what William had figured, was probably a journal, for he, himself, wrote in one from time to time, Sin found where he had written about Adomas. "In Chicago, I brought him to a bull I know. This fella eats high on the hog from getting folks jobs. Adomas had some money. He spent every cent of it though, getting a job. He wanted a particular job, I remember, was willing to pay much more than what it usually costs to get it…"

George leaned in, "What did Adomas want to do?" he asked.

William added, his mind flying ahead of his ability to truly grasp yet all it was figuring out, "He had experience with the meat industry, worked as an icer," the words came out of William's mouth feeling as if his vocal chords were played, by not by his own brain, but by the words of the witness who had told him about finding Adomas' body on the train at Burns' meatpacking plant.

Images rolled out in front of William, flickering as if charged by lightening. "Adomas had been the one," the thought sending such a surge of energy in his gut, "He was the one, getting paid to remove the ice from the roofs of the refrigerated train cars – to spoil the meat – and then to make sure the car got enough ice at the end of the trip to feel cold when it was unpacked at the end of the line. Adomas wasn't spying on Davies for Burns– he was working for Davies, he was sabotaging the meat!"

George knew this look he now saw on the detective's face. He was figuring out something important about the case. He felt it in his bones, they were getting close!

Sin answered, "Henry got it. Adomas wanted a job icing the trains. That's a good paying job."

George took the ball, knowing that the detective was still off wherever he goes when he has one of his epiphanies. "You say it cost a man a lot of money to get these jobs?" he asked, delaying.

"Yeah, yeah, the system will drain you of everything you got. He needed to pay the bull, and then he needed to pay the guy the bull knew at Armour's…" Sin paused to search his notes. Leaning over, George could see that Sin had names and amounts – quite detailed notes indeed.

"And how did a guy like Adomas get all that money… to pay these guys, you think?" George asked, delaying even further.

Sin considered for a moment. "Well, he said he had gotten a big job when in Toronto… I guess that's where he got the money," he replied.

He went back to his book, the detective's eyes focusing on it as he leaned in closer to join them. "He's back," George thought to himself, feeling a twinge of relief.

Sin proceeded to read out the names of both the cop and the connection at Armour's meatpacking facility whom Adomas had used to get his job at Armour's business as an icer. He had even shared the amount of the payoffs Adomas had given the two men.

"You know," Sin said, changing the subject, "Adomas wouldn't have been able to get that job, even if he did have enough money. You gotta be big and strong, and quick on your feet too, to do that job. Adomas had that going for him… handsome as hell too. Now, that ain't always an advantage out here, if you run into the wrong men anyway." His tone was ominous, and he almost winked at William.

William and George should have been paying better attention with that warning, but their minds were already overloaded, each brainstorming in their heads about the case, and working to keep up their deception believably, and even starting to wonder how one keeps from freezing to death, or starving, or even dying of thirst out here.

It turns out this man would help them with all of these things. He agreed to take them right to the bull who had gotten Adomas the job in Chicago, if they'd just entertain him with their own stories… tell him how they each got so down on their luck that they ended up here. But, they would need money – to pay off Binsley and O'Dwyer.

William had plenty of money hidden away in secret compartments here and there. He reassured Sin that money would be no problem.

George found the deal very intriguing. "Can I ask you Sin, are you a writer?" George said, suddenly worrying that his question would be too intrusive. He decided to be self-disclosing, "You see, I consider myself a bit of a writer… And your notes and your interest in people's stories, um, well…"

"Yes, George," Sin responded, "I fancy myself as one too."

It took all the self-control George had not to brag about his books. He felt the detective's eyes burning into him with warning. George smiled, "Nice to meet a fellow writer then," he said.

William cleared his throat, pulling everyone's focus to him. "We'd be glad to tell you our stories," he said. William went first, but he knew his story needed to be believable, and it needed to be heartbreaking in order for to explain why he would end up hoboing… And Sin had already seen him, lovesick for Julia – entranced with her picture…

So that is how it came to be that William told them his story. He spoke of finding the woman he had always known was out there for him, describing falling so hard for her that he was certain he would never feel the ground under his feet again.

"Now that's the 'bale of straw?" Sin asked.

"Bale of straw?" William questioned.

"Sorry, the blond… in the photograph," Sin explained, "the beauty you been staring at."

It was George who answered him, "Yeah, he's loved that woman ever since I've known him… Not a day has gone by, I'm sure, where Henry here hasn't thought about her."

William told them that his world had been shattered when she told him she was leaving him, and with much insistence, she told him why. "You see," he said, the lump in his throat drying his voice, "she wasn't leaving because she didn't love me, she was leaving me because she did." He saw the confusion in their eyes, using it to deepen their empathy he explained, "She had come to see that I wanted to be a father, and she had known from the beginning, from our beginning, that she was sterile, and so she had concluded that she would not be able to make me happy, and so she left me so I could find another – who could."

Sin spoke up, "But you clearly loved her and only her, still to this day you look at her picture. Why did you let her go?"

William sighed, and regret dimmed his eyes. Shaking his head, fighting the pain he was re-feeling, he explained, "I've never been quick at figuring out what I feel," he said, looking up, catching the man's heart with his despair. He went on, "I did chase her, though, the next morning, but I missed her train, was too late, considered proposing in a telegram, decided against it. Then I went to her…" William looked at George, knew he'd make the connection when he said, "…in Buffalo. But, before I could tell her that I loved her, and I wanted to be with her more than I wanted to breathe, well, before I could tell her, she told me she was marrying another."

Both men gasped. William needed to swallow, he'd become choked up.

He took a deep breath, recuperated some, and went on. "The man she married, the man who wasn't me, well, he didn't want any children, didn't like children," he said, most of the emotion gone out of him now, "the really sad part still hadn't even happened yet, because it was on the day she married this other man that I found out that she still loved me – I had doubted it because he was so… well, he was a toff, like her, and of course, I wasn't – but her note said that if I still loved her, as she still loved me, then I should stop her wedding…"

"Why didn't you?" George asked, sincerely, knowing the significance of the question.

William reached up and rubbed his forehead, wanting to ease the pressure. He exhaled, long and deep. Here, right here and right now, he would add another person, George, to the list of people who would know that he had broken the law. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth and admitted, "I couldn't, um…" he took another deep breath, exhaled strongly once more, "I only had one chance… life gave me just one chance to fix a mistake I had made, the biggest mistake I had made in my life, and life gave me that chance then, at that moment, that morning, because of her wedding, I had the chance, because of the distraction her wedding to this other man would cause, I had the one and only chance I would ever have to right my biggest wrong. I had committed a crime, and an innocent woman was going to be hung for it, and, well this was the chance I had, to break her out of jail. And so I let the woman I loved, will always love till the day I die, I let her marry another, and I got this innocent woman, who was set to hang for my crime… I set her free."

"And the wedding? She married the other guy?" Sin hurried to ask.

William nodded, but it was George who answered, "I remember that day. I think I even remember the note from her, to you… I think I was the one who…"

William nodded his head, and wrinkled a corner of his mouth – and it that seemed all the air went out of George, only to be replaced by a hot, burning pain.

Taking a deep breath, William allowed the air to intensify the glow of the embers of ache in his heart, and went on… because now he would embellish, and a tale that twisted and turned in real life, leading to profound happiness, would be told as a heart-wrenching tragedy instead. "Now, she is married to this other man, not me, even though it was me whom she loved, so I could have children with someone else, and she doesn't know how much I love her, that she was the only one for me, and that without her I would have to live my life on my own, unloved, lonely. And even worse is that she doesn't know how I feel about her. She thinks I didn't stop her wedding because I didn't love her, and I can't tell her I set the woman free because, well… I could go to jail, and besides, by then she was already married, and there's nothing either of us could do, so I never told her how much I still love her… And then…" William said, finding that just imagining it, realizing that he had imagined it when Julia was married to Darcy, just this thought, could wrench him down to his bones. He shook his head, his eyes down on her picture, tears in his eyes, and said, "And this really just ended me, then she gets pregnant…with this other man's child."

With heartfelt compassion, Sin responded, "That's devastating."

George reached over to his friend, took a hold of his shoulder and said, "Henry, I'm sorry. I didn't know," his use of William's fake name solidifying the ground under them, bringing them back to, centering them in, the here and now.

William cleared his throat, swallowed and replied, "I know George, I never told anybody."

The men sat quietly for a moment, thoughts swirling in their heads, emotions sinking into their deeper selves. Finally, Sin broke the quiet.

But… you married I see?" Sin asked, looking at the wedding band on William's finger.

William hesitated, he needed to think, twirling and fiddling with the ring, then answered, "Well, before this woman I loved…" He dropped his eyes down to Julia's photo, still in his lap, "This bale of straw," he added, the tiniest of smiles creeping on his face as he remembered Julia's curly, exquisite hair, almost felt one of the course ringlets between his fingers. He sighed, and continued, "She, uh… well before I found out she was engaged to this upstanding, wealthy, successful… other man, actually, the morning she got on the train to leave Toro… Hogtown, to leave me, because she thought I couldn't love her," William swallowed, pushing down the pain associated with the memory of seeing the train, its red caboose, pulling away from the station that day, "because, now I knew she was sterile…"

"And the real agony here is of course, that she wasn't sterile like she thought she was. I mean she broke your heart, and her heart, all for a mistake… My God it is truly heartbreaking," George said, seemingly enthralled, "And you both could have had the life you… I mean you could have been together AND you could have been a father." George's eyes filled with tears with these words, for he had never seen it so clearly, the true wonder and amazement of what these two had together… Joy seeped so deeply into him, for he knew this man's happiness, this man in front of him whom he loved so… the newfound awareness bringing him absolute joy.

Sin was also intrigued, urging Henry to get back to his story, "Well… the ring?" he said, his eyes dropping to William's left hand.

"Yes, well, I had an emergency to deal with at work, the day she told me that the reason she was leaving me was because she knew how much I wanted to be a father and she was sterile. And because of that emergency, I couldn't buy her ring until the next morning, but I did – and along with it, I bought us both wedding bands… And I rushed to catch her at her train to Buffalo… And I just missed it, saw the red caboose pulling out of sight around the bend, and I just stood there fighting with every muscle, every breath, not to collapse down onto my knees right there on the train platform, and I watched until I could no longer see the trail of smoke.

George had his hand over his mouth, amazed, absolutely amazed… For he knew every word of this story was true, well almost every word, and he'd never really known, and now he did, and he felt a lump in his throat, and his eyes were welled up…

Sin asked, "So… you wear a wedding ring, but you never married?"

William nodded.

"That is sad," the man replied, receiving a simple smile, and then his customary 'admitting it' look.

Not long after that, George shared his story, predicating it on the fact that it would not be as interesting as Henry's. He stated plainly, that he was not here because of woman, but he that he too had been unlucky in love. He was here because he had little hope of getting a decent job. Explaining that he lost his job because he stole something, he added, "Something of great value, and well then, well … I had a record, and no one would hire a man who had stolen from a previous employer now, would they?"

After a sigh, he tried to cheer up, stating with a shrug, "Maybe it's for the better. I too have always fancied myself a bit of a writer," he said, sharing a nod with Sin, "always longed to get out and see more of the world… Now's my chance, as I see it." He looked over at William and said, "I consider myself lucky that I met up with this fellow here, Henry Codrum from years ago, and we found each other again– at the House of Industry, and so I figure I'll just kinda tag along, taking notes for novels I want to write some day… Now I know Sin, that you wouldn't know it, but Henry here is quite an inventor, smart, even more than smart. And let me tell you, never a dull moment," George concluded, sharing an appreciating nod with William.

The men grew quiet for a few minutes, giving William time to delve into his thoughts about Adomas. He reasoned that Adomas got his job icing trains for Armour so he could sabotage the meat, that was the big job and money maker he wrote to Ieva about in the beginning of July. He was probably working for Davies. Of course, it was possible that he was actually working for Burns, William couldn't be sure. Either way, it would be in the best interests of the USA to stop the sabotage of their major toff's businesses, so Clegg probably sent an assassin out to kill Adomas. "Perhaps it was on the train from Winnipeg to Toronto where the assassin finally caught up with Adomas…" William thought. But what about Meyers, why was he involved back before he got blasted out into space in Pendrick's rocket? The papers said that both the American and Canadian governments investigated the spoiled meat, because people died in cities from both countries, and then perhaps both countries agreed to call it negligence on the part of the American companies, maybe it was in everybody's interest to cover up the sabotage aspect behind the deaths, and the big three American meat magnates placated by agreeing to add more icing stations along the train routes. William wrinkled a corner of his mouth subconsciously as he thought, "But what would be in it for Clegg, besides covering up that his man killed a Canadian citiz…"

Suddenly, the train hit the breaks – hard.

They had pulled into an icing station, but seeing as it was the middle of the winter, that clearly wasn't why they were here. Further, the trains heading westward rarely had refrigerated meat aboard to need to be kept cold. William and George had been busy working to assess the situation, so at first, they had both missed the look of worry on Sin's face. It wasn't until the man had already run to the car door and flung it opened that they knew he had every intention of taking flight. This man was their best chance of finding out what had happened to Adomas Baltavesky. They had to stick with him.

And so, the threesome found themselves ducked down inside of one of the most disgusting-smelling garbage cars ever to be smelt, waiting to pull out on an adjacent train. They hadn't noticed that this series of train cars lacked an engine, and so was destined to go nowhere. They heard the voices of the railguards yelling back and forth to each other as they progressed further and further down the train they used to be in.

The side of the garbage train car they were hiding in was rusted out in spots, and George was able to peer out through a small hole in the dilapidated metal. Through the hole he saw a few guards run past. But then, oh and he was certain, he saw Clegg. The man said nothing to no one, and yet somehow it was obvious that he was in charge. George felt it in his marrow, the stakes were high.

All three men let go an audible sigh of relief when the other train pulled away, although they were wise enough to stay put a bit longer. This was a fortunate decision, for the guards could soon be heard searching the woods in the surrounding area. They stayed hunkered down, freezing, stiff and sore, and worried, for almost an hour, the reek of the garbage seeping deeper and deeper into them, until they heard car engines turn over and then the voices were silent for another ten minutes before they braved taking the chance to move.

They were on the move the moment they had crawled out of the garbage car, talking as they walked, and walking fast. Sin explained that the Americans were crazed with finding and stamping out socialists. Neither William nor George asked, it was just assumed, that Sin was one. That's what they got Jurgis for. He was the fella I told you about who lost all his savings to the bank cause of the tricky mortgage, and then his wife died in childbirth, and then…

George finished, showing the story had touched him, "his first son drown in the street."

"Yeah, him," Sin said, "He helped during the meatpackers strike back in the summer, walked off the job, encouraged others to do the same, even started some trouble with the scabs that came in to fill the jobs. He got blacklisted, and then all that other stuff happened so quick once he couldn't get a job." Sin shook his head and added, "Then they got a bull on the take to arrest him on some fake charge or another, theft I think, and now he's just stuck livin' out his days in some jail cell."

After traveling another couple hundred feet, fortunately downhill, William asked, "You seem to have a particular destination in mind," wondering where the h…

"They didn't just randomly stop the train at that icing station fellas," Sin answered. "Them bulls, and probably this Clegg you two seem to know, they knew we were close to the jungle," he explained.

"The jungle?!" both William and George exclaimed in unison, William with an eyebrow lifted, though no one could see it as they rushed along their path.

Sin stopped, the winded state of the three men now more apparent without all the motion. He gazed down the ridge into the valley below. "We'll need to bring somethin' with us," he continued, as if the question had not been asked. Spotting smoke from a farmhouse chimney in the distance, the rapid pace was re-established. "A jungle, gentlemen," he finally answered, "Is a place where hobos congregate. This particular one draws men from far and wide… Has an abandoned barn, and the owner, likely a socialist I might add, is tolerant. You will be able to ask about your friend Adomas there," he added.

They stopped at the farmhouse, and using some of William's money – which he had hidden in secret compartments in his coat and pants – they purchased an abundance of canned goods, potatoes and corn, and some milk. Bearing gifts, so to speak, they headed off to the jungle.

))) (((

Rocking in such a delicious sleep, Julia had drifted off on the couch. Eloise came in from her afternoon shopping, stomping snow and muck off her boots at the door and dropping down the packages to take off her coat. As will sometimes happen during lucid dreaming, Julia pulled the sounds she actually heard occurring in the environment around her into her dream, the dreamer's mind incorporating them into the unfolding story. In this case, Julia dreamt that she was asleep on the couch and it was William who came in the front door, home from work.

Her insides twisted so lusciously as she dreamed that her handsome lover approached, his dark-chocolate eyes studying, admiring, her sleeping body, growing lustful. His breathing strengthened, rushed, as he held himself back, forced himself to wait… took off his jacket, his vest, his tie. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt, then with his eyes darkening, soaking in the sight of her chest softly rising and sinking as she breathed, he reached down and undid the buttons at the ends of his sleeves. Finally ready, he kneeled down on the floor before her, and tenderly captured a curl dangling at the edge of her face. He fiddled with it briefly, then slipped his fingers into her hair, glancing the sensuous ridges of her ear, then his thumb found the traces of her cheek, and he leaned forward, his warm breath breezing gently across her skin, just before, like a prince in a fairytale, his lips settled on hers, and his kiss seduced her to wake.

"William," she said, raspy and succumbing, the utterance not much more than a mumble to the real ear, as his kisses traveled to nestle into her neck, their intensity growing to nibbles and then to outright, mark-making, hunger. Her womb flipped over inside of her, and she moaned low and deep in response. She felt his knuckles brush against the curves of her breasts as his fingers pinched the buttons of her blouse, freeing the supple, jiggly orbs of flesh, and the world fell away from her from such dizzying heights, for then his mouth licked and sucked at her cleavage.

She had had something important to tell him, something very, very important… she was certain. And she fought against her urges trying desperately to remember what it was. But then…

His fingers… Oh my God… "How did he remove my skirt...?" And now his fingers … Oh my, slipping into her wet folds. And she arched up to him, and flipped and surged and fell, when he moaned with his discovery of her creamy, scrumptious desire for him. And, "wasn't there a thought… pulsed her brain as it spun…

"Please William," she cried out, "Oh my God please," her words pierced the air, their sound in reality beginning to tug at her consciousness, to pull her away from him. "Hurry William! Please," the words screamed for him in her head.

And then she felt him cover her. And the world collapsed with pleasure as he ruptured her, every cell in her body knotted with anticipation, for he was so close now. "Boom," the first thrust came… "Boom," the next. So magnificent the feelings rippling and storming through her. "Hurry," she pleaded, feeling the edges moving in from the periphery, "Hurry." And then the tilt… and the float… There was no stopping it now. It would hit, and it would hit ha…

Mmm, such a flood of his hot sweetness, eruption, after eruption, after eruption of his sumptuous waves flowed over her, through her, in her, to and from her deepest center, her core, where he touched her so deeply. My God she loved him so. William… William…

And she was awake, with her brain and her body still swimming, as she swallowed down the ecstasy, and hugged and reached for him, now knowing only his absence… and the soft couch was under her… and she was alone… and he had left… and he might never, never… come home.

))) (((

It was dark when they arrived at the jungle, men's faces illuminated only by the glow of a few fires burning near the back door of the barn. Although it was cold, it wasn't windy, and the doors were left partially opened to allow the light and warmth from the cooking fires in, the smoke from the fires traveling downwind away from the barn. William, George and Sin had made their way around to each of the eighteen hobos, making small talk and asking questions about Adomas. Using his photo, the one that William had found with Adomas' letters in the room where Ieva had stayed in Toronto, they had found four men who recognized their victim. All of them had known Adomas as an icer on the trains from Chicago to the East, one even remembered his name.

William had also thought to ask about other icers, and had found that there were a few besides Adomas, mostly after men had stopped seeing Adomas last summer. Interestingly, quite a few hobos, one of them quite young, only about fourteen-years old, who had ridden that train-line in the summer said they had also come upon large blocks of ice on the ground near the tracks. Most of the time, these ice blocks were within a few hundred feet of an icing station, convincing William that his theory that Adomas had been sabotaging the meat on the trains was likely correct.

After completing the rounds, the three men settled down, sitting eating with their backs leaning up against the wall. "That young man, the one who's looking for his father…" George reflected, "he's gonna end up with quite a story, don't you think Sin?"

"A sad one, I'd bet," Sin replied.

"Seems most are," William added. William had identified with this teenager, for they had both lost their mothers when they were young. This youngster's father had stuck with him though, unlike William's father. That is until last summer, when the man's hand had been chopped off in accident with a machine. Even then the boy had become the adult, caring for the father, earning what little money he could for them. William sighed with his own thoughts. "I guess it all got to be too much for the man – wounded his self-respect so much he had to go," William figured to himself…

"Speaking of stories, George said with curiosity in his eyes, "Would you tell us yours Sin?"

"Ah now," Sin said, lifting his eyes to meet George's in the dim, flickering light, "that wasn't part of deal." The man smiled at George, glanced across George to nod at William, and smiled.

If William would have been pushed to say, he thought the smile revealed Sin's suspicions that they were not the men they had claimed to be. He even imagined, in that blink of a moment, that Sin was telling them that he didn't care – he liked them anyway. It seemed Sin caught William's smile and nod in response just before George asked…

"Well then… why the name 'Sin?' I mean it just seems a bit of an odd name to give yourself, implying that you sin a lot and all," the fellow writer wondered.

Sin chuckled at the thought, its logic obvious. Truth be told, it was because of the man's real name, 'Upton Sinclair,' but there was more to it, and that was the part he was willing to divulge. Turning back to look at George he replied, "As a writer George you are likely to enjoy words as I do. I came across one that I instantly became fond of, 'sinuous,' so I took the name 'Sin' from it."

"Oh, I see," George said, considering whether or not to let on that he was not familiar with the word. He wondered if it would reflect badly on his abilities as a writer.

Interrupting any chance for George to ask, Sin asked, "Did you fellas find useful answers to your queries?"

William answered, "There are quite a few hobos here Sin. You were right about that. Yes, yes, I think it may turn out helpful, we were able to get the word out, so if Adomas is still hoboing, he'll likely find out that two friends are looking for him… It is amazing how many people are here in December…"

"Yeah, you wouldn't really expect it, but this jungle has lots of amenities… Now I know neither of you has anything to compare it too, but, well, that's why… You know, there's even an outhouse," he declared. "And I'm gonna go use it," he said, moaning with the stiffness of standing and then taking his leave.

Hurrying to take advantage of being alone, William told George his theory about what had happened to Adomas. He explained that he figured Adomas had been hired by either Davies or Burns in Canada to get a job with one of the big three American meat magnates, probably Armour based on what Sin had told them, and then he caused their meat to spoil by throwing out the ice from the refrigerated train-cars, while at the same time making sure to fill the cars with ice at icing stations sufficiently far enough out from the destination points to ensure that the meat would feel cold upon arrival. This way the decayed meat would be sold to the public and a major competitor would be destroyed. Further, he reasoned that Davies was most likely behind the plot because his business still relied heavily on slaughtering hogs at his site in Toronto and then selling the meat locally, rather than using meatpacking from far away like Winnipeg and then shipping the meat in refrigerated cars. By making the public think that shipping packed meat was dangerous to their health, his slaughterhouse would be rolling in profits.

William admitted that he was still foggy on how Clegg and Meyers both fit in, thinking that Clegg might have had Adomas killed to stop the sabotage of American bigwigs, and then Meyers might have traded Canada's keeping quiet about the American's murdering of a Canadian citizen for their toff, Armour, accepting responsibility for the bad meat and agreeing to add more icing stations to the train routes.

It all made sense to George. He glanced over at the closed front doors where Sin had exited the barn heading for the outhouse. Likely, there wasn't much time, but he so wanted to know… Clearing his throat and working up the courage, George asked, "Sir, I apologize if my asking, um, oversteps my bounds…" George paused. His eyes waited…

Certain that whatever it was George was thinking of asking it would probably lead to discomfort, William frowned, but still said, "What is it George?" reminding himself to be patient, imagining Julia's influence in the back of his mind.

"Well sir, why didn't… Well, what I mean is, if Dr. Ogden wasn't sterile after all…"

A hot buzzing began to play in William's ears. This was going to get personal. William pushed himself to stay connected, held eye contact, nodded, told himself he could handle it.

George continued, "Well it would seem to me that your story should have been true sir… I mean the part about Dr. Ogden getting pregnant with Dr. Garland's child… But she didn't…"

Surprising himself with the feel of it on his own face, William smiled and then finished his thought, "So how could it be that she got pregnant when she was married to me, but not when she was married to Darcy?"

George nodded enthusiastically, certain Sin would come through the front barn doors any minute.

William took a deep breath entirely aware of the building up of the pressure inside of him, and sure that George would notice the flood of heat crawling up his neck and into his face. He found it necessary to swallow before he could speak, starting, "Julia has shared her ideas on the subject…" Yet, William found it impossible to look George in the eye, quickly dropping his eyes to the barn floor as he struggled with using the few words that seemed available to him in his head, like, "because of my sexual prowess," or, "because we make love so often and our lovemaking is so good," certain that he would be unable to say such things out loud. "Um… we uh, she says that I uh…"

William's efforts managed to convince George that his thoughts about the explanations had been right. Brilliantly, the younger man found a way to let the detective know that he understood the reasons. Sparing the man the uneasiness of being blunt and descriptive, George interrupted, "Don't worry sir, I understand. Um, you see I know about the parrot sir, um, I heard Charlie… talking… uh, going through his imitations, uh, back in the Winsor House Hotel."

"Mm," William replied with a nod and a look of recognition, verifying George's conclusions. It took everything George had not to make a joke, the thoughts dancing so near his tongue, of how silent the same bird likely would have been if he lived a floor below the Garland's bedroom back when the two doctors had been a couple. He held back, knowing his mentor… Oh, but he did so admire the man, seemingly in all things, it turned out.

/ ~~~

Returning with the last bit of meat on the grill, after what had appeared to George and Sin to be quite an entertaining conversation with the chef – a man Sin knew to be a homosexual, William sat down next to Sin. He sensed there had been much giggling at his expense, suspecting the grins the two men were having trouble wiping off of their faces were the remnants of the fun.

Sin teased, "So Henry," George turning away quickly to hide his face, "Seems that the local wolf there's been tryin' to get ya in his pack, heh?"

Despite wishing it wouldn't happen, a pink flush swept over William's face betraying his embarrassment. "I guess," he replied, George now falling apart, unable to hide his laughing.

Sin reminded, "You know I warned you, being a handsome fellow around these parts can lead to trouble."

William looking momentarily puzzled, for he did not really remember being warned of any such thing. The he said, "Jack…" he cleared his throat, "Jack, the 'local wolf' I suppose… said I… uh, that it was obvious that I wasn't a 'sheep." William braved asking, curling up a side of his face to show his uncertainty, "He said he figured I was more like a 'ram'…?" his question causing both men to sputter into snickers.

"Mm," Sin responded, working to contain his laughing, "I figure he's got a point."

Unfortunately, William figured he already had a pretty good idea what Jack's sexual innuendo had implied, but he preferred to be sure. The man had been blatantly flirtatious with him, even poked him in the ribs with his apparent joke about how he could 'ram' him anytime, clearly implying he was inviting William to have sexual relations with him. Perhaps he was most wondering about how common such relationships were among hobos. Jack had been one of the men to say he recognized Adomas, and Adomas too had been attractive. Maybe he had propositioned Adomas as well.

Sin leaned forward, hushed his voice, and the other two huddled closer to listen up. "It is pretty common, for an older, more experienced man who knows the ways of life out here on the rails to befriend… and kinda, well, bond with, you could say, a younger, less experienced one. They call the experienced man a 'wolf,' and the novice fella is called a 'sheep."

"I see," George blurted out, quickly lowering the volume, "So, the wolf called you a 'ram' instead of a 'sheep' – get it, an adult male sheep, sir."

William smirked scornfully, "Yes George, I get it," he replied, annoyed.

Jack extinguished the cooking fires, leaving a fire going for heat and light and then walked over to sit himself down next to William. He pulled out a bottle of whiskey from his coat, the smell of it rushing into William's brain, reminding him of Julia, and he felt a pang of missing her in his chest. "She would have been delighted," he thought. Jack offered up a swig.

"I'm not a drinker," William answered, seeing what he thought might be disappointment cross Jack's face.

"How about you other blokes?" Jack offered.

Both Sin and George were glad to accept, thanking the man for his generosity. "Henry," Jack started, "I hope you ain't angry with me. I meant no insult to you…"

"None was taken," William replied, showing he held no grudge. It had not been the fact that it was a man propositioning him that had embarrassed William with Sin's and George's teasing as much as it had been being propositioned at all, by a man or by a woman. In the recesses of his mind he thanked his wife, for so many years ago she had pushed him, helped him have the compassion to wholly grasp the humanity, even normalness, of men who lead such non-traditional lives. It had been one of the first times she had been angry with him… "Maybe more frustrated than angry," he thought. He fondly remembered the conflicts stirring within him at the time, between both being frightened of her fury, and falling even more madly in love with her for it, as he had watched her unruly curls bouncing about while she argued passionately, her voice rising to that exquisite squeak of hers with the excess emotion. "If God didn't want us to express our desires, then why would he give us desires in the first place?" he re-heard her now in his head. Yes there it was again, that lovely flip, and ignition of love in his chest, leaving an aftertaste of loneliness because of their current distance.

Over the years he had come to see homosexual preferences as being no different than any other sexual proclivities one might have. The train of memories ran on the back burner of his mind, of Giles becoming so angry with him for making the assumption that all homosexuals were attracted to young boys – likening it to his own situation of not being attracted to young girls, and even Dr. Grace and Lillian Moss loving each other, and having to do so secretly as they had, to live happy lives and be accepted in the world. He was grateful now, that without condescension or with some subconscious feelings of either superiority or pity, he could truly say that he had not been insulted by Jack's proposition.

Jack shared with them that there was straw they could use for keeping warm and for bedding more comfortably up in the loft. William was in the process of explaining the loft would also be a better sleeping location because heat rises when…

All of a sudden the front doors were thrown open, and immediately silence overtook the dimly lit barn as some uniformed policemen walked in.

The mood turned serious instantly, everyone holding their breath. Sin, on one side of William whispered, without changing the angle of his glance down on the floor, "This is not good."

Concerned for Sin, William remembered that earlier he had fled the train and hidden from Clegg. He noticed that George too seemed to be looking at the faces of the intruders, presumably also worried about Clegg.

Sin's eyes still down, he whispered, "The big boss is a wolf…" Turning his head more towards William's side, Sin spoke slightly louder, across William, "Jack, where's the boy?"

Panic for the fourteen-year old boy's safety spread through the four men, all of them now risking searching around the barn to see if the boy was adequately hidden, none spotting the young potential sheep.

"Don't see him," Jack whispered back, everyone returning their eyes to the floor.

"Flannel Bull's gonna pick Henry then," Jack warned, sending a chill down William's spine. Jack dug into his coat pocket and pulled out something small. "Henry, take this," he said, sneaking the tiny object into William's hand.

Careful not to look at it before he slipped his hand into his pocket, he determined by the feel of it the identity of the object. "A prophylactic! A prophylactic!? Why on Earth..?" William's brain screamed, rushing with fear, a part of him refusing to see the obvious implications. "I, uh…"

Jack whispered, rushing as the policemen grew close, "He'll let you use it with the woman first, before he…"

Jack halted his speaking, even his breathing, as the man, the only one lacking a uniform, stepped in front of him, his perfectly clean and polished boots suggesting his relative importance.

"Flannel Bull, I presume," William thought.

"So, if it isn't my old friend, Wolfman Jack," Flannel Bull said, feigning camaraderie. "And what do we have here?" his voice said, it's angle of approach changing as he leaned over, his face coming closer to William.

"Keep your eyes down. Keep your eyes down," William coached himself with his mantra.

""" ```

The whole thing seemed like a bad dream… William hoisted to his feet by the uniformed men. Instructed to remove his coat. George surging forward, being hit. George down on the floor – a gun to his head. Williams coat, was it he himself who tossed it off to the side? Flannel Bull touching him. Resisting, turning to swing at the man. Pow! – the cracking sound of the gun handle hitting his skull, its ultrasonic boom registering before the searing sting on the back of his head. Still up, wobbly. "Stand still!" the whisperer ordered, Flannel Bull now behind him, the man's breath in his ear. "Just as easy to shoot your friend as not," he threatened, returning his hands to place them on William's body. Repulsive, disgusting bastard… "Take off your shirt," the command came, silence but for the sound of the cocking of the gun at George's head. Unbuttoning the buttons – forgot the sleeves. Reaching to unbutton them too. Don't even feel the cold on my skin. Shouldn't I feel the cold?!" …Bastard's hands on my…! "Mary's gonna like you," his disgusting breath in my ear.

"He'll do. Cuff him."

At the barn doors. Opened, cold air on my chest now. "The boy! The boy! What is he doing standing there!?"

"Run!" William yelled, thrusting his body backwards into one of his captors – back of his head slamming into creep's face. Kick – high! Hit hard. "Behind you- don't forget behi…

Blackness

))) (((

Sin and Jack had enlisted the help of the other hobos to care for William and George after Flannel Bull and his men had left with the boy. They were able to use a wood axe to break the chain between the handcuffs so he wasn't no longer forced to keep his hands behind his back, and then they put William's shirt and coat back on him, and then the men struggled with getting him up into the loft.

When William awoke hours later, up in the hayloft, dressed, it was with a jerk, his mind urgently shouting in his nightmare for the boy to run, frantically fighting off the American policemen, delaying their pursuit, in the darkness… and it was cold, so very cold…

Sin sat up only a few feet away from him. "Henry, you alright?" his question hitting William's ears with a startle in the dark.

His fingers were touching, discovering the large bump on the back of his head, before he had noticed that it hurt. "Henry?" William asked himself. Then he found the odd bracelets around his wrists. "What the…?" he wondered briefly before the memories hit him, and he knew, "…Handcuffs." The emotions so powerful, they threatened to hurl him away so severely that he had to fight with all his might to somehow stay – where he was – which was still in the barn – where Flannel Bull and his men had captured him – before the boy was discovered instead.

"Sin?" William asked, unable to see in the dark.

"Yeah," came the man's answer. "They knocked you out. George too…"

"George!" William gasped.

"He's fine. He's right here too. Came to a little while after they left. Must be sleeping," Sin reassured him.

"And the boy?" William forced himself to ask, noticing the hope in his own voice, yet so sure it was for naught.

Sin exhaled and William already knew. "They got him," he answered.

))) (((

Plagued by invasive flashes of images of what had happened… and even by what would have happened… if they had not discovered the boy instead, William was exhausted, unable to sleep, but drifting off over and over again as the train car they were in rhythmically, almost hypnotically, brought them closer and closer to Chicago.

Itchy, scratching at was surely lice, George asked the same questions repetitively, constantly, over and over again, because he only remembered the bits at beginning – the American cops coming in. How did I get this lump on my head? I got hit? Who hit me? Why would they hit me? They had you, sir? Why did they hit me? Who hit me? They had you, sir? Why? I got hit? My head hurts. How did I get this bump on my head? Over and over again William and Sin would answer the same questions. Admittedly, their patience was growing thin.

William couldn't get the demise of the boy off of his mind, ashamed of himself, though not quite consciously aware of it, for not having protected him, experiencing a sort of survivor's guilt for not having been taken instead of the boy.

"I feel I should have done something," William said breaking the monotony of George's questions. Of course, he should have known, he should have been emotionally prepared for George to do it…

"Done something about what?" George asked, prompting William to roll his eyes, annoyed with himself for setting up another round.

Ignoring George's question, Sin said, "Nothing you could do. Flannel Bull was gonna leave with someone… someone young if they were there. The boy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time – as were you."

"Who is Flannel Bull?" George asked as if he'd never heard the name before.

Completely overlooking George's question, Sin reflected philosophical, "Look, out here it's all about power… and most of us don't have much, some ain't got any. When you realize that there ain't no shame in not having power, you'll survive better."

William and Sin shared a long look before William replied, "Well that's all well and good, but it isn't just about power now is it?"

Confusion crossed Sin's face.

"I mean, it is one thing to have more power than others. Imbalance of power seems inevitable. It's another," William shook his head, his aversion to the thoughts, the memories leaving a bad taste in his mouth, shaping his expression. His eyes held firm to Sin's, "It's completely another thing to abuse the advantage that power gives you for the sole purpose of hurting others," he declared.

Grateful for George's stupefied look as opposed to his incessant questioning, Sin replied, "Well, you're getting to the full impact of the first law of the jungle - power. And when you really study it, it's like any other drug, corrupting, devouring. It can take a man's conscience more forcefully than any alcohol I've ever seen, turn him into someone he'd be ashamed of in a flash. Cause there's a little trick to power, once you taste it, you don't want anything else, and you want more, and the greed just mushrooms inside of you, and then …" Sin paused, took the pulse of the other two. They were right there with him. In the back of his mind he applauded his own previous judgment, not surprised, for these two had seemed special from the beginning. He continued, "Well, then you will do anything to feel that surge of power inside of you again – and it's easiest to gain it by taking it from another, and usually the weakest ones are the easiest targets."

The moral battle lines were being drawn, and William felt his blood pumping inside of him, rallying him to the cause. "The way I see it, the law of the jungle is that the strongest, the fastest, survive. The tiger hunts and kills, hurts its prey- yes it's true, but not just because it can, but also because it's hungry, it must cause this pain in order to survive. If I run faster than you when the tiger takes up chase, I do so because I can and because I need to in order to survive. The tiger does not kill because it takes pleasure in causing pain to the prey, I do not run faster than you for the pleasure of seeing you killed by the tiger. The way I see it, the law of jungle is that you do what you must do to survive – and of course this extends to protecting and caring for those you love. It is not about power over others for the pure sake of power – that is not the law of jungle, at least, not the real jungle anyway," he said.

For the first time all day, George seemed himself, connected, understanding, interested. He nodded in agreement, adding, "That seems right, sir."

Sin sighed, feeling his friends were on the moral high ground, but that they were not seeing the glaring, blatant, ugly truth. He tried to reveal it to them, explaining, "Yeah, I see your point, um with real tigers and real gazelles and all, but power for power's sake is the law of this jungle, the one we were just in, back in the barn, and the bigger one, the jungle made by capitalism and its inherent struggle and its ultimate downfall – its temptation for greed, and to you and me and that boy and Adomas and Jurgis, and even to Flannel Bull, to us, this jungle is the real one. And in this jungle, and this is especially true after a man's been kicked when he was down, made powerless and victimized, abused, and then, he gets a chance to feel in control and have power over another, well in this jungle it's a hard thing to pass up... And who are we to say a man wouldn't take that chance to feel powerful in the end? Like revenge… if it came down to it, wouldn't you want to hurt Flannel Bull if you had the chance? Don't you think that boy would?" He then hit William with his hardest question, "Don't you think his father would have?"

Her image dashed across his mind, Julia, with her belly sticking out in front of her, big with child – his child, maybe his son… And he did feel it, the crawl, the boil, of agonous, crippling, pain at the thought of someone intentionally hurting his child, and it was suddenly there, he knew it was right – such a feeling would… it definitely would, ignite into fury. And yet, inside of him there was a battle, down to the core of his soul, for a part of him called out wild and hard, for him to find another way, a higher way. William took a deep breath, imagined the anger flowing away, and said, "Justice yes- he should pay a price for what he has done, but…" William shook his head, stammered on his search for the words, "But to stoop to his level, to fall into cruelty and malice, to hurt just to hurt… I hope I wouldn't, because if I did then I would have lived a life, survived it all, but I 'd have done it all for nothing… it wouldn't have been a life worth living in the end."

Sin found he admired the man, his call to our better angels. He had felt the tug of it. He had to admit he was grateful for the inspiration, but he also figured that reality would eventually steal away the temporary insight, not just from himself, but from Henry, if that was actually the man's real name, as well. "Touché Henry," Sin awarded, "But what you speak of is rare…" Sin shook his head, attending to the opposing forces inside of himself. He changed the subject – sort of.

"Do you remember why I said I chose the name 'Sin?" he asked.

George bubbled with excitement – he had not remembered something for a while. "Sinuous!" he exclaimed.

Sin and William shared an appreciative look. "Yes George," Sin replied. "It means supple, limber, able to bend. It is of course, how the tree survives the hurricane. For me it serves as a reminder to be willing to adjust. For me it is the trick to life, to any modicum of happiness, and the key to being able to survive… particularly here, in this jungle.

))) (((

Bolting upright, Julia was suddenly awake. Dark, but for the glow of moonlight, she knew it was the middle of the night. "William's gone," came the important reminder explaining the lack of ease. She turned to find the empty pillow, the empty place in their bed. "He's somewhere even if he's not here… probably cold…" She pictured him in her mind, lying on the hard ground, only the one blanket, sleeping curled up in the fetal position, shivering – the mind denying him sleep to keep the pulse rate up, to stay alive, to survive the cold. Julia rolled over and pulled his pillow lengthwise, then tucked it under her arm, under her leg, and under her belly. His red pajamas under the pillow, she felt their cozy fibers in the darkness, pulled them close, knowing his scent would permeate, stimulate, her deepest memories and thoughts of him. Tears began to swell. And she told him across the vastness, that she wished she could cover him, warm him, shelter him from any harm that threatened to rain down on him… She sighed, so aware that she could not…

She took a deep breath letting the burning ache of his absence intensify in her chest as the oxygen touched the flames, steam prompting a teardrop to pearl and roll across her nose, fall to the pillow, so large and so swollen with liquid that she could hear it plop onto the pillowcase. "Oh William," she pleaded in her mind, "please take care of yourself, treat yourself with kindness, my love, for I cannot, so you must," her thoughts begged across the universe. The tiny spasms started in her gut as her crying turned to weeping, and she didn't fight it, but yielded to its catharsis instead. She whispered her plea in the whitened dimness, "Come back to me," before she buried her face in his pillow and cried it out.

Not much later, Julia awakened from a dream, the images seeming to swirl away to be replaced by her more grounded awareness. Lingering, she felt the urgency with which she had been searching for him in the dream, trying to find William with an essential message to tell him… And her mind paralleled a thought about how crazy this was… She had wanted to give him the critical message that the manger's car pet, a large, hairy dog who lived permanently in the back seat of Mulligan's automobile, well, in the dream she knew she needed to tell William that she had seen the manager's car pet dripping and soaked in blood… And the most important part she knew only she would know, that it was up to her to tell him, that it was not a male, as the manager had been claiming, no, it was a female.

Sitting on William's side of the bed, Julia puzzled at her own subconscious for the veritable oddness of the dream. It would plague her. Eventually she accepted that she would have to wait for her own subconscious mind to send her a better clue, while she sipped on her hot chocolate, downstairs in the kitchen, wishing with all her heart that it could be like so many other nights, and she would see him in the window reflection, or hear his footsteps softly approach from behind her. She wished more than anything, that he were there…

))) (((

Already drained and troubled, William and George jumped off of the moving train, leaping one after the other behind Sin. The pungent stink of the cold air alone signaled that they had arrived in the Chicago stockyards. The Sun was low in the sky as they made their way, boots crunching in the snow, to begin the next part of the journey.

With Sin as their guide, they were quite successful with their progress on the case, having had contacted both the cop Sin knew and the inside man at Armour's Meatpacking plant who had gotten them the undercover jobs they wanted. William would be working on the second floor of the building that handled pork production, as close as possible to the offices where he hoped to find logs recording when Adomas Baltavesky had worked there and what jobs he had had. George had gotten a job in the cold room, where the pork is packed, with the hope that he would come across workers who had known Adomas, who could tell them what their victim had done last summer. Both jobs were unpleasant, George's in the freezing cold all day, cutting up meat while unable to feel your fingers, William's probably even worse, placing the chains around the live pigs' feet for them to be hoisted up onto the meat-hook on the overhead assembly to begin the process of being slaughtered and then butchered.

By the time they said their good-byes and thanked Sin, all three had come clean about their true identities. And thus it was that the detective and the constable had been introduced to the world of the jungle by the important and influential author, Upton Sinclair.

))) (((

William turned out the light in their tiny room. Only minutes later George's voice breeched the darkness as they both tried to settle down to sleep. "It's like we will be working the opposite ends of the line you and I, hmm sir… You at the beginning and me at the end?" he asked sounding much too awake.

"Mm," William answered.

"I guess those pigs are on the bad side of the law of the jungle then," George mused. "You remember sir, when you made me wear a dress and shoot the pig carcass?" he asked to only silence, "…to measure how far blood spatter would travel…" still only silence, "Or when we saw the plane crash and there was a pig-alien flying it?" he went on… and on…

George's voice rambled in the background while William's memory of having Mulligan insult him in the Judge's office, saying snidely, "If you hang around a slaughterhouse, sticking your nose where it does not belong, detective, you should not be surprised if you end up being mistaken for a PIG," played in his brain. It simmered a bit, tempting him to attend to it, his anger, "…or was it," his last thought taunted, "…fear."