Free The Outcasts by Stephen Becker

the bridge only because he was meant to cross this gorge, as if a cave or a cairn or a woman or a wooden chest or a shrine awaited him, marked MORRISON. Or even TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN; but it was for him. That was more nonsense, like the monkeys and snakes and jungle cats he never saw. But the urgency grew: he must cross on their bridge, and not on his own. When he was there with Philips or the others, he ignored the far side; he wanted something to happen for himself alone.
    One night Philips said, “Only sun-worship makes sense. The sun is the source of all life.”
    â€œOn this planet,” Morrison said. It was after supper and they were sitting like widows in their little courtyard among the trailers, and gossiping. Ramesh always lit his lamp and sat on a folding chair. Philips sat on the doorstep of a trailer, and on moonless nights the yellow bulb threw shiny planes across his face as he squinted, pursed his lips, arched his brows. Or hunched forward, arms on his thighs, head low. From the woods, night-laughter.
    â€œOther planets are of no interest,” Philips said. “I leave the other planets to the Americans and the Russians, who have solved all their problems on this one.”
    The dark was warm and comforting, and the stars were friendly. There seemed no reason not to enjoy a third bottle of beer.
    â€œYou pig,” Philips said. “We are talking theology and you think only of your pint.” The five weeks had passed like lazy months, and the days and nights of dust and heat were like so many miles between them and the world. The world. Meaning anyone anywhere who was not working on this road and this bridge. So he uncapped a third bottle for Philips too. Ramesh declined. Ramesh had his pipe. And a small stylet, and every night he toasted a small pellet and smoked it up. At first Morrison had no idea what it was. Then he was shocked. “Let it go,” Philips said. But Ramesh came to him the next day, cheerful and innocent and supple as ever. “I hope you will not mind,” he said. “It is only a few grains and I find it pleasant. My health is good, you see. The legends are much exaggerated.”
    â€œWell, no, I don’t mind,” Morrison said, sheepish immediately. None of his business really. Was it. “As long as your health is good. It seems to leave no effects.”
    â€œNone a-tall,” Ramesh said gratefully, and that was that. He smoked it up happily. He belonged to the night as he drowsed, to the land, to the heat. “I am not a slave to it, you see. I could refrain if I wished to. But I do not wish to. Oh no.”
    Philips smiled faintly hearing that.
    Five weeks. Morrison spent Mondays and Tuesdays at the capital with Manoel Serpa and his men. Those were uneasy days. Serpa made him uneasy. The drawings had been rendered with the finest pen-points and the purest ink on the smoothest paper, and the letters and numbers were the pristine work of a master hand, and where Morrison had said one meter twelve he meant one meter twelve and not one meter eleven ninety-nine. Serpa fluttered and placated; absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. The forms were perfect, as if cut and joined by Jesus himself. Morrison had only to look. Here. Our Lord was a carpenter. Morrison knew that, did he not. A failed carpenter, Morrison said drily, and Serpa’s nose twitched in alarm: a joke? an atheist? He brightened: there. The cement. Of purest white. The best his country could offer. And the little rocks. For the—say that once for me? Ag-gre-gett. And here the retardant, and even so everything covered with wet burlap and sprinkled two-hourly all through the hot night. Feel! Measure!
    Serpa was building most of the bridge right there. The killing work, though, would be at the site: they would have to throw one great arch of wooden forms across the gorge and fill it full of concrete and keep the concrete moist while it set. Then Serpa’s components,