They counted. One hundred and fifty four individual chickens now roamed- an abuse of the term- an enclosure meant for maybe thirty. Steve suddenly felt a bit like an unwilling Tyson and had an urge to unlock the gate. Surely some pressure relief was wanted, welcome, fine. But Muleman was standing there ready to dicker and if they let them wander now Steve would have trouble rounding them up for sale. So he apologized to them all silently, ignored their frantic clucks of encrushed agony, and hoped it would be enough to give them space and freedom later.
He also reminded himself that just yesterday they had been constituent parts of a hideous monster all and sundry had feared to look upon and that maybe this was the price they paid for that deference. Either way, he thought, it might be a good idea to see if he could make sure that didn’t happen again.
“How many you need?” He asked Muleman, who stared in rapturous glee at the carpet of protein and feather. “I could maybe part with-“ he did some quick math. “A hundred and twenty-four between you.” An even number. They’d appreciate that. He looked up, but the captain wasn’t there. The man was going to miss out but that was business. Except… “Where’d he go?” Muleman shrugged and waved behind himself, his eyes never leaving the chickens.
“If he doesn’t want them I’ll take them all.”
“That’s a lot of chicken.” Muleman smiled a big happy smile and Steve saw the hair on the back of his head flit up. “Then again, who’s to say?”
“I suspect, however, that the mistress of the house may require some other payment.”
“Well you said the pick of the cart. I’m sure she’s gone through it by now.”
“Oh I imagine she has.” Muleman continued watching the chickens. They clucked around the way Steve remembered chickens clucking. It unsettled him that they had come from what he knew to be a thing completely unlike the way he remembered chickens. Steve thought about the cow, and then Muleman’s second face.
“Let me ask you-“
“I don’t know,” Muleman said.
“But I didn’t-“
“It doesn’t matter.” Muleman’s main face was serious now, and though it was still pointed at the chickens it didn’t seem like he was watching them anymore. “Pardon me for saying so but you aren’t that hard to read.”
“It’s my honest face.”
“And your aura.”
“My what?”
“Never mind.” Muleman sighed. Steve felt sad for him, which was odd. A wave of it come from nowhere and now he felt like he was almost on the verge of tears. “Incidentally you might want to sell me all the chickens. And maybe both cows, rather than the one. Technically you own them.” He glanced to his right, down towards the militia. “For awhile. And I’d rather buy from you than them. Support small business, I always say when there is one available.” He smiled.
“What do you mean ‘for awhile’? That doesn’t even sound ominous: it just is.”
“Yes,” Muleman said. “It is.”
How quickly would you adapt to a two-faced customer? What kind of salesman are you? We think that if you are in sales the answers are ‘quickly and professional’, but for the rest of the population we believe the answers are ‘never and bad.’ We are, sorry to say, including ourselves in the latter though the former is more of a hit or miss situation. There is, after all, a dog the size of a small bear and all the accoutrements that come along with that herein. We do though see that even Steve has had some trouble, his discomfort with the movement of hair an indication that not all is as it should be with him. Hair moves. It is supposed to. Unless it is being moved by a mouth atop the occipital bone, we imagine him replying in perhaps less technical terms.
But we consider his recovery valiant. And Muleman’s patience deserves a plaudit too. After all, of all those who must adapt to a two faced head we have to think that the most adaptation must be being done by the head which has grown said second face. And yet here he is, buying and selling and making little jokes for himself while clearly having something to say to Steve RE: the continuation of Steve’s agriculture concern. And Steve, bless him, is remarkably slow on the uptake here for someone who knows Sheila, doesn’t know where she is, and has already witnessed her murder a singleton and threaten a multitude on her lonesome. Perhaps it is his shoulder bothering him, perhaps it’s a willful ignorance. Either way, noting that something is ominous and not simply acting on the realization is the mark of someone about to feel the consequences.
Steve eyeballed Muleman, doing so with the corner of it to try and make it as quiet as possible. He had a feeling Muleman knew anyway.
“The problem with any long-term partnership,” Muleman said, “Is that one person is always going to try and burn down the village. Do you, Steve, fancy setting any fires?” Steve shook his head. “You should sell me all your chickens, and both cows, and call it a day here, I think. I’d offer to buy the goats too but I don’t think you own them. They seem to own themselves.” The universe complied at that moment, as a goat managed with spectacular accuracy to pee on Steve’s shoe. He looked down at the warmth and the goat stared into his eyes, square pupil threatening Steve with the fires of hell should he protest. The goat finished, wandered away, and Steve shook his foot.
“Yeah you did offer that. Then you said you couldn’t pay for ‘em. So I’m not all that sure what your plan is. Or why you’re- well. OK. I know what you’re driving at. I don’t imagine It’s that hard to see.”
“Or hear. Or read. Or believe. Tell me this, Steve. Where is the captain of the militia that was waiting to kill you before I arrived?” Steve looked around, failed to see the man, and felt his heart drop.
“Shit.”
The impulse to turn and sprint towards the house was strong. Steve managed to suppress it but wasn’t at all sure it was the right course of action. Then again, what was done- where Sheila was concerned- was going to be done. And all in all she’d so far been at least fifty percent of keeping them alive. Maybe whatever she was doing- and it didn’t exactly have to be murder- was the thing that needed doing. It was possible. After all, they hadn’t been invaded after she’d shot the guy, and now here he was engaged in commercial activity. Maybe, he thought, it’s Muleman who doesn’t get it. It’s Muleman who doesn’t understand the situation.
Muleman’s first face broke out into a sad grin.
“I’ll say this, Steve. You have an honest face. I meant that. You’re not hard to read. I meant that as well. But Sheila and the captain have been very clear from the beginning, and I have to say both of them have an honest… everything. There is only one ending for them, today.”
“Goddamn wood.”
“I imagine you feel that way.”
“If I hadn’t gone after it-“
“That is one way of looking at things.”
“If I hadn’t stayed to look-“
“And another.”
The kinds of conversations one can have with a person who seems to be able to if not read minds then at least listen to them on their neighbor’s radio usually aren’t the most scintillating. But we draw your attention to the continuing nature of it. The opportunity to close and carry on has come, and neither has yet taken it. In Steve’s case the opportunity is obvious. In Muleman’s we think less so, unless perhaps having your best and only friend growing inside your own head is something one might want to forestall or somehow subvert.
We wonder at Muleman’s normal. This certainly can’t be, we would think, being caught in the middle of a standoff between a militia and a pair of homesteaders. But then who are we to know? He does seem rather pensive, but his is not the story we have observed. Perhaps for him this is a ritual, a following of scripts that grow more normal with every passing individual. When the end comes, the end comes.
Then again maybe he likes subverting expectation, or doesn’t like murder. Maybe he needs an employee who doesn’t induce cell division. Maybe he just likes the cut of Steve’s jib. Any of a thousand things might be the answer, and to know we’d have to be inside Muleman’s head. It seems to us like there are enough people in there already.
Steve turned back to the house.
“I guess I better go-“
“Pointless.”
“Eh?”
“Never mind. Steve, if you’ll sell me the whole stock, I’ll drive you out of here in my cart. Sheila can keep the rocket launcher.”
“The what?”
“Exactly.”
