The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman And Matters Of Choice Part 113

The fat man grunted, spat on the clean floor. Leaving the orderly room, he mounted his beautiful brown cavalry mare and rode through the main gate of the prison camp. One day's start was nothing, when the brother was toting an invalid. There was just the one road; they could have taken only one direction or the other. He chose to turn northwest. From time to time, whenever he pa.s.sed a store, or a farmhouse, or another traveler, he stopped and made inquiry. In that way, he pa.s.sed through the village of Horseheads, and then through the village of Big Flats. n.o.body he talked to had seen the men he was looking for.

The sergeant major was an experienced tracker. He knew that when a trail was this invisible, most likely it was the wrong trail. So he turned his horse and began to ride in the other direction. He rode past the prison camp, and through the town of Elmira. Two miles down the road, a farmer remembered seeing their wagon. A couple of miles past the Wellsburg town line, he came to a general store.

Inside, the proprietor smiled to see the fat soldier crowd close to his stove. "A cold one, ain't it?" When the sergeant major asked for coffee, black, he nodded and served it.

He nodded again when the man asked his question.

"Oh, certainly. They're boarding at Mrs. Pauline Clay's, I'll tell you how to find it. Awfully nice feller, Dr. Cole. He's been in to buy groceries and such. Friends of yours, are they?"

The sergeant major smiled. "It will be good to see them," he said.

The night following the operation, Shaman sat in a chair next to his brother's bed, and kept the lamp burning throughout the long night. Alex slept, but his slumber was pain-ridden and restless.

Toward daybreak, Shaman drifted into sleep for a brief time. When he opened his eyes in the gray light, he saw Alex looking at him.

"Hey, Bigger."

Alex licked dry lips, and Shaman brought water and supported his head while he drank, allowing him only a few small sips.

"Wondering," Alex said finally.

"What?"

"How I can ever ... kick your a.s.s again ... without falling on my face."

How good it was for Shaman to see his crooked grin!

"You whittled away more of my leg, didn't you?" Alex's gaze was accusatory, which stung the exhausted Shaman.

"Yes, but I saved something else, I think."

"What's that?"

"Your life."

Alex considered, and then he nodded. In a moment he went back to sleep.

That first postoperative day, Shaman changed the dressings twice. Each time, he sniffed the stump and studied it, terrified lest he detect the stink or sight of corruption, because he'd seen many die of infection within a few days of amputation. But there was no smell, and the pink tissue above the stump appeared to be sound.

Alex had almost no fever, but he had little energy, and Shaman had no confidence in his brother's recuperative powers. He began to spend time in Mrs. Clay's kitchen. Midmorning he fed Alex a small amount of gruel, and at midday a coddled egg.

Shortly after noon, large white flakes began to fall thickly outside. Snow soon covered the ground, and Shaman took an uneasy account of the supplies he had put in, and decided he would take the wagon to the general store once more, in case they should be snowed in. During an interval in which Alex was awake, he explained what he was going to do, and Alex nodded that he understood.

It was pleasant, driving through the silent, snowy world. The real reason he had come was to get a soup fowl; to his disappointment, Barnard hadn't a fowl to sell, but he had some decent beef that would make nourishing soup, and Shaman told him that would have to do.

"Your friend find you all right?" the storekeeper asked, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the fat.

"Friend?"

"That soldier. I told him how to ride to Mrs. Clay's house from here."

"Oh? When was that?"

"Yesterday, couple of hours before closing. Heavy man, fat. Black beard. Lots of stripes," he said, touching his arm. "He never came?" He looked narrowly at Shaman. "I suppose it was all right to tell him where you are?"

"Of course, Mr. Barnard. Whoever it was, he probably decided he didn't have time for a visit after all, and drove right by."

What does the army want now? Shaman thought as he left the store.

Halfway home, he was afflicted with the feeling that he was being watched. He resisted the urge to turn in the wagon seat and look back, but in a few minutes he pulled the horse up and descended to fuss with the bridle, as though making an adjustment. At the same time, he took a good look behind him.

It was hard to see through the falling snow, but then the wind brought a high swirl, and Shaman could see there was a rider following, distant.

When he reached the house, he saw that Alex was fine. He unhitched the wagon and settled the horse in the barn, then went back in and put the meat on the stove to simmer in water, along with potatoes, carrots, onions, and turnips.

He was troubled. He debated whether to disclose what he had learned to Alex, and finally he sat by the bed and told him. "So, we may have a visit from the army," he concluded.

But Alex shook his head. "If it was the army, they'd have hammered on our door right away.... Somebody like you, come to get a kinsman out of prison, is bound to be carrying money. More likely, he's after that.... I don't suppose you own a gun?"

"I do." He went and dug the Colt from his bag. At Alex's insistence, he cleaned it while his brother watched, and loaded it, making certain a fresh round was in the chamber. When he placed it on the bed table, he was even more troubled than before. "Why would this man just wait and watch us?"

"Scouting us ... to make certain we're alone here. To study the lamplight at night and learn which bedroom we're in ... things like that."

"I think we're making too much of this," Shaman said slowly. "I think probably the man who inquired about us is some kind of army intelligence soldier, making certain we're not planning to help other prisoners get out of the camp. We'll probably never hear of him again."

Alex shrugged and nodded. But Shaman had a harder time believing his own words. If there was to be trouble, the last circ.u.mstance he'd have chosen was to be holed up in this house next to his weak and newly amputated brother.

That afternoon, he gave Alex warm milk sweetened with honey. He wanted to force-feed him with rich puddings, to will flesh back on his ribs, but he knew it would take time. Early in the afternoon Alex slept again, and when he awoke several hours later, he wanted to talk.

Slowly Shaman learned what had happened to him after he had left home.

"Mal Howard and I worked our way down to New Orleans on a flatboat. We had a falling-out over a girl, and he went on alone to Tennessee to enlist." Alex stopped and looked at his brother. "Do you know what's happened to Mal?"

"His people haven't heard a word."

Alex nodded without surprise. "I almost came home then. I wish I had. But there were Confederate recruiters all over the place, and I enlisted. I thought I could ride and shoot, so I joined the cavalry."

"Did you see much fighting?"

Alex nodded somberly. "Two years' worth. I was so d.a.m.n mad at myself when I was captured in Kentucky! They kept us in a stockade a baby could have walked away from. I waited my chance, then I skedaddled. I was free for three days, stealing food from gardens and such. Then I stopped at a farmhouse and asked for something to eat. A woman gave me breakfast, and I thanked her like a gentleman, didn't make any improper moves, which was probably my mistake! Half an hour later I heard the pack of dogs they turned out after me. I ran into this enormous cornfield. Tall green stalks, planted stingy close, so I couldn't pa.s.s between the rows. I had to break them down as I ran, so it looked like a bear had been in there. I was in that corn most of a morning, running from the dogs. I began thinking I'd never get out. Then I came out on the far side of the planting, and there were these two Yankee soldiers pointing their guns and grinning at me.

"This time, the federals sent me to Point Lookout. That was the worst prison camp! Bad food or none, foul water, and they'd shoot you dead if you came within four paces of the fence. I was surely glad when they shipped me out of there. But then, of course, the train wreck happened." He shook his head. "I just remember a big grinding noise and a pain in my foot. I was unconscious awhile, and when I woke up, they had already cut my foot off, and I was on another train heading for Elmira."

"How did you manage to tunnel after an amputation?"

Alex grinned. "That was easy. I heard that a bunch was tunneling out. I was feeling pretty good, those days, and I took a turn digging. We tunneled two hundred feet, right under the wall. My stump wasn't healed and I kept getting it dirty in the tunnel. Maybe that's why I had trouble with it. I couldn't go out with them, of course, but ten men ran free, and I never heard that any of them got caught. I used to go to sleep happy, thinking about those ten free men."

Shaman drew a breath. "Bigger," he said, "Pa is dead."

Alex was silent for a while, then nodded. "I believe I knew when I saw you had his bag. If he was alive and well, he'd have come for me himself instead of sending you."

Shaman smiled. "Yes, that's true." He told his brother what had happened to Rob J. before he had died. During the telling, Alex began to weep weakly, and he took Shaman's hand. When the narrative was over, they sat silently, hands still clasped. Well after Alex had fallen asleep, Shaman sat there without letting go.

It snowed until late afternoon. After night fell, Shaman went to a window on every side of the house in turn, and peered outside. The moonlight gleamed on unbroken snow, no tracks. By that time he had worked out an explanation. He thought the fat soldier had been sent looking for him because somebody needed a doctor. Perhaps the patient had died or recovered, or maybe the man had found another physician and no longer needed Dr. Cole.

It was plausible, and it comforted him.

He gave Alex a bowl of rich broth for supper, with a softened cracker in it. His brother slept fitfully. Shaman had thought to sleep that night in the bed in the other room, but he dozed off in the chair next to Alex's bed.

Early in the morning-he saw by his watch next to the gun on the table that it was 2:43-he was awakened by Alex. His brother's eyes were wild. Alex had pulled himself half out of the bed.

Someone is breaking a window downstairs, Alex mouthed.

Shaman nodded. He stood and picked up the gun, holding it in his left hand, an unfamiliar tool.

He waited, his eyes on Alex's face.

Had Alex imagined it? Maybe dreamed it? The bedroom door was closed. Perhaps he'd heard the sound of breaking icicles?

But Shaman stood still. His whole body became his hand on the piano sounding board, and he could feel the stealthy steps.

"He is inside," he whispered.

Now he began to sense the ascent, like the notes on a rising scale.

"He's coming up the stairs. I'm going to blow out the lamp." He saw that Alex understood. They knew the layout of the bedroom, while the intruder didn't, an advantage in the dark. But Shaman was agonized, because without light he couldn't read Alex's lips.

He took his brother's hand and placed it on his own leg. "When you hear that he's in the room, squeeze," he said, and Alex nodded.

Alex's single boot was on the floor. Shaman shifted the gun to his right hand and bent and picked up the boot, then blew out the lamp flame.

It seemed a very long time. There was nothing to do but wait, frozen in darkness.

Finally the cracks around the bedroom door changed from yellow to black. The intruder had reached the lamp in the hallway wall and had snuffed it so he wouldn't be silhouetted in the doorframe.

Trapped in his familiar world of perfect silence, Shaman sensed when the man had opened the door, informed by the flow of frigid air from the opened window.

And Alex's hand squeezing his leg.

He threw the boot across the room, to the far wall.

He saw the twin yellow blossomings, one after the other, and tried to aim the heavy Colt to the right of the spurts of flame. When he pulled the trigger, the revolver bucked savagely in his hand, and he used both hands to hold the gun as he pulled the trigger again and again, feeling the blasts, blinking at each flare, smelling the devil's breath. When the gun was finished, feeling more naked and more vulnerable than ever before, Shaman stood and waited for the smashing bite of return fire.

"You all right, Bigger?" he called at last, like a fool, unable to hear any reply. He fumbled for the matches on the table and finally lighted the lamp with unsteady hands.

"All right?" he said to Alex again, but Alex was stabbing with his finger toward the man on the floor. Shaman was a poor gunfighter. Had the man been able, he might have shot both of them, but he wasn't able. Shaman approached him now as if he were a hunted bear whose mortality was uncertain. His own wild marksmanship was evident, because there were holes in the wall, and a splintered floor. The intruder's shots had missed the shoe but had ruined the upper drawer of Mrs. Clay's maple dresser. The man lay on his side as if sleeping, a fat soldier with a black beard, a look of surprise on the dead face. One of the shots had nicked him in the left leg, at just the point where Shaman had cut off Alex's limb. Another had hit him in the chest, directly over his heart. When Shaman palpated his carotid artery, the flesh of his throat was still warm but there was no pulse.

Alex had no resources left, and he quickly fell apart. Shaman sat on the bed and held his brother in his arms, rocking him like a child while he trembled and wept.

Alex was certain that if the death were discovered, he'd go back to prison. He wanted Shaman to take the fat man into the woods and burn him, the way he'd burned Alex's leg.

Shaman comforted him and patted his back, but he was thinking clearly and coldly.

"I killed him, you didn't. If anyone's in trouble, it isn't you. But this man will be missed. The storekeeper knows he was coming here, and maybe so do others. This room is damaged and needs a carpenter, who would talk about it. If I hide or destroy his body, I can hang. We're not going to touch his body again."

Alex calmed. Shaman sat with him and they talked until the gray light of day came into the room and he was able to extinguish the lamp. He carried his brother downstairs to the parlor and laid him on the sofa under warm blankets. He filled the stove with wood and reloaded the Colt and set it on a chair next to Alex. "I'll be back with the army. For G.o.d's sake, don't shoot anyone until you make certain it isn't us."

He looked into his brother's eyes. "They're going to question us, again and again, apart and together. It's important that you tell the exact truth about everything. That way, they can't twist what we tell them. You understand?"

Alex nodded, and Shaman patted him on the cheek and left the house.

The snow was knee-deep and he didn't take the wagon. There was a halter hanging in the barn and he put it on the horse and rode her bareback. Well past Barnard's store, it was slow going over the snowy ground, but after the Elmira line the snow had been packed down by rollers, and he made better time.

He felt numb, and not from the cold. He had lost patients he thought he should have saved, and that always bothered him. But he had never killed a human before.

He reached the telegraph office early and had to wait until it opened at seven A.M. Then he sent a message to Nick Holden: Have killed soldier in self-defense. Please send civil, military authorities in Elmira your endors.e.m.e.nts at once regarding my character and that of Alex Bledsoe Cole. Gratefully, Robert J. Cole.

He went directly to the office of the sheriff of Steuben County and reported a homicide.

68.

STRUGGLING IN THE WEB.

In a short time, Mrs. Clay's little house was crowded. The sheriff, a stocky gray-haired man named Jesse Moore, suffered from morning dyspepsia, and he frowned occasionally and belched often. He was accompanied by two deputies, and his message to the army had quickly summoned five soldiers: a first lieutenant, two sergeants, and a pair of privates. Within half an hour Major Oliver P. Poole arrived, a swarthy bespectacled officer with thin black mustaches. Everyone deferred to him-clearly he was in charge.

At first the soldiers and civilians spent their time viewing the body, going in and out of the house, clumping up and down the stairs in their heavy boots, and conversing privately, with their heads close together. They wasted whatever heat was in the house and tracked in snow and ice that made a disaster of Mrs. Clay's waxed wooden floors.

The sheriff and his men were watchful, the military men were very serious, and the major was coldly polite.

Upstairs in the bedroom, Major Poole examined the bullet holes in the floor, the wall, the bureau drawer, and the body of the soldier.

"You can't identify him, Dr. Cole?"

"I never saw him before."

"Do you suppose he wanted to rob you?"

"I don't have the slightest idea. All I know is, I threw that boot at the wall in a dark room, and he shot at the sound, and I shot at him."

"Have you looked in his pockets?"