It was late morning when the Bowler Hat arrived at the Zuckerman farm after camping out the previous night. He had spent hours the day before searching Pithole and the surrounding area for his horse and buggy. As he plodded along, chastising himself for not preventing the gunfire that spooked his horse, he was reminded of an incident that had occurred during his boyhood in the Cuyahoga Valley of Ohio. His parents had a farm. While his father was plowing the field one day, a rattlesnake spooked his horses and they took off, trampling and killing the family dog, a collie. The Bowler Hat’s parents and five siblings were distraught, and he thought the crying and wailing would never stop. The Bowler Hat was ten, and it was the first time he had realized he was different. He felt nothing, nothing except an overwhelming sense that his family was weak and that he was strong. His mother noticed, and she gave him a good whipping, calling him “an unfeeling godless child.” He never broke; he never cried. That’s when he realized he had a special skill.
He pulled his horse and buggy up to the farmhouse and stopped as Albert Zuckerman came out to see what he wanted. When the Bowler Hat first laid eyes on him, he found it hard to believe Zuckerman was Jewish. Six feet tall, muscular, with blond hair and blue eyes, he was Romanian with an accent to match.
He could easily pass for one of us, the Bowler Hat thought.
Any doubts he had were erased when, after having convinced Zuckerman he had a friendly business proposition, they entered his farmhouse. On the doorway was one of those Jewish decorations. Zuckerman saw the Bowler Hat stare at it.
“It’s a mezuzah,” he explained as he kissed his hand, then touched it. “It ensures that God will watch over our home no matter where we are.”
The Bowler Hat smiled. Zuckerman would soon discover that God was nowhere to be found. Hell had come to pay him a visit.
An hour later, Zuckerman was tied to a chair. He had a broken cheekbone, a smashed nose, and two cracked ribs, but he still refused to sign over his land.
“Take our offer. You’re going to, eventually,” the Bowler Hat reasoned. “You might as well do it while you still have some semblance of a face left.”
“Go to hell!” screamed Zuckerman as he spit blood in the Bowler Hat’s face.
The Bowler Hat reacted swiftly with a fist to Zuckerman’s cracked ribs. Zuckerman cried out in pain, but he wasn’t budging. He looked up defiantly.
With each blow, the Bowler Hat’s admiration for Zuckerman grew. He was becoming weary from hitting him, and the place in his arm where he had been shot was starting to throb. Yet the Jew was still full of fight. At this pace, he might kill him before he signed over his land. That would be messy, and the Oil Trust didn’t like messy.
There was a chance of a surprise with every job; some were unfortunate, some fortuitous. What happened next he could only describe as serendipitous.
A horse and wagon could be heard approaching. Seemingly out of the blue, Zuckerman got anxious. It was the first time he showed any concern at all.
“Firn avek!” he shouted in Yiddish. “Firn avek!”
The Bowler Hat was fluent in many languages. Yiddish was not one of them, but he didn’t need a linguist to realize it was a warning. He stuffed his handkerchief in Zuckerman’s mouth and forced it closed with his hands so he wouldn’t make a sound.
Amelia Zuckerman was an exotic-looking beauty with a lithe, supple body. She was returning from a trip to Titusville, where she had bought food and supplies for the next few weeks. She was excited that the dress she had ordered from Philadelphia had arrived. She and Albert liked to dress for dinner once a week. It was their way of keeping some semblance of civilization in a place where there was none.
“Albert, come help me unload the—” Amelia stopped after entering and seeing her husband. “Albert!” she screamed in shock.
The Bowler Hat had never seen such a beautiful Jewess. At that moment, he knew exactly what to do. He punched Zuckerman in the face as hard as he could. Zuckerman’s last conscious moment was filled with his wife’s horrified scream.
Later, Zuckerman awoke to cold water being splashed in his face. It was a jolt, but it meant he was alive. He soon realized he was still tied to the chair and had been moved to his bedroom. Zuckerman turned his head, then froze, petrified by what he saw. Amelia was totally nude, her hands and feet tied to the four corners of their bed. The Bowler Hat stood next to the bed wearing only his undershorts.
“Welcome back,” the Bowler Hat said, grinning tauntingly.
“Amelia!”
“Amelia. So that’s her name. Thank you for the introduction. It will make what we’re about to do more personal.” He pulled down his undershorts.
“Albert!” Amelia screamed, her anguish tearing at her husband.
“Leave her alone! Leave her alone, goddamn you, or…”
“Or you’ll what?”
The Bowler Hat climbed on top of Amelia as Zuckerman struggled to get loose.
“You bastard!” Zuckerman yelled at the top of his lungs, but his anger soon turned to desperation. “Please, leave her alone,” he pleaded. “I’ll sign whatever you want. Just leave her alone.” Then Zuckerman started crying. Not just crying, sobbing.
The Bowler Hat smiled. His job was done. He just needed to get the bill of sale signed, then leave. He was a businessman, and this was all about business.
As he started to get up, the Bowler Hat caught a glimpse of Amelia. She looked at Zuckerman with such sympathy, such compassion, such love, that he was overcome with a desire to teach her a lesson. It was almost involuntary when he entered her. Zuckerman’s sobbing and Amelia’s struggling only excited him more. In no time, he was finished.
Riding away in his horse and buggy, the signed bill of sale in his breast pocket, the Bowler Hat reflected on what had just transpired. He had left the Zuckermans huddled on the floor together, both crying uncontrollably. It disgusted him. The Jew was tough; he’d give him that. But in the end he broke. Most men did. It was just a matter of finding their weak spot. The Bowler Hat was confident he didn’t have one, though he was a little concerned about his transgression. Discipline was a way of life for him. Work demanded he be in total control. In this instance, he hadn’t been. Again, he questioned himself. Was he slipping? Again, he immediately dismissed the thought as ridiculous and categorized what happened as no more than a perk of the job.
As he spotted Titusville in the distance, his mind wandered on to other matters, and he headed into town, hoping his train would be on time.