by Scott Thomas
Gabe sat for a time just holding the candles. They had a strange feel, as if they were made from pale flesh, and they smelled of rare and secretive herbs, from far off lands where a New Englander ought not venture. When at last he lit one, and saw the bizarre images in the light around the flame, he blew it out and hid both candles away in his desk.
One might think that an enigmatically hollowed-out elephant would make for a fine sideshow attraction in a circus. It was not to be. For while the curious flocked, the owner of the travelling entertainment had ordered the burning of the body mere hours after its demise. Gabriel Burkett learned this the next day, when he returned in hopes of better examining the creature. What veterinarian or man of science could blame him for wanting to? He was sorely disappointed to find that the remains had been destroyed. As for the circus, it packed up and left in the middle of the night, days earlier than scheduled. Those seeking thrills and diversion found only a trampled field.
Windy pines framed the pasture where Gabe knelt by a sheep in sunny grass. A farmer and his sons hovered nearby and Gabe’s horse was grazing. Idyllic as the sprawling farmland appeared, it was haunted by tiny monsters, such as those that had caused the blindness in the patient Gabe was examining.
Felix Griffin had summoned Gabe because the sheep had taken to walking in circles and seemed incapable of straight, forward motion. Then its vision went.
Gabe stood above the others when he rose, wiping his hands on his trousers. His face was grim and his voice low, “It’s not good, Felix. I believe it’s a case of gid in sheep. Are you familiar with it?״
“No,” the farmer said.
“Occasionally a sheep will ingest the eggs of a bladder worm—a tapeworm in an early stage, actually. Well, the eggs hatch in the stomach and the worm gets into the blood and lands up somewhere else in the body, maybe the lungs or the heart, or in this case, the brain.” Gabe pointed to his own skull.
Absently stroking the back of the sheep, the doctor continued. “This walking in circles indicates that only one side is infected. The blindness is another indication of bladder worm. The condition is advanced enough for me to feel some softening of the skull.”
The farmer was staring at the animal, nodding as he listened.
One of Griffin’s freckled boys looked up at Gabe and asked, “Are you going to kill her?”
Gabe crouched down to face the boy. “This poor beast is very ill, son. Sometimes we have to put an animal down as an act of mercy, or to prevent it from spreading a condition to other animals.”
“But this one is my favourite—”
“Your favourite, you say? Well then, maybe I’ll try something. There’s nothing to lose, really. But will you promise you won’t hate me if I can’t save her?”
“I promise,” the boy said.
The sheep was moved back to the barn and prepared. Gabe located the soft spot on its skull and went to work with a trocar and cannula. He used a syringe to draw the filling out of the cyst.
Following the procedure, Gabe and the farmer stood outside in the tilted afternoon light.
“What do you think, Doc?”
Gabe sighed. “Well, there is a risk of brain inflammation, and that could be fatal, as one might expect. There could even be another worm in there that I didn’t get. I can’t be certain. We’ll hope for the best.”
The young freckled boy came up to Gabe and shook his hand. “She’s going to be fine, now, I know she is. Thank you, mister.”
Gabe always looked both sad and hopeful when he smiled.
The tempo of Aileen McCutcheon’s humming was usually dictated by the particular task she was involved with at any given time. There were slow wistful airs when she knelt weeding in a warm garden of summer herbs. Jaunty reels accompanied the husking of corn, a ritual performed in a creaking rocking chair beneath her favourite maple. Patching her husband’s wounded farm clothes called for slow quiet tones and now, in the kitchen, hustling to get a meal on the table, a swiftly melodic country dance tune swirled with the smells and steam of cooking.
The chickens sounded outside. There was always the risk of foxes and occasionally a neighbour’s dog, or even a group of dogs, would steal into the yard and wreak havoc. Aileen glanced out the window into the yard and gasped.
A naked man with brownish skin and tousled black hair was crouched over a dead rooster. The other chickens lay convulsing on the ground around him. Aileen screamed and the stranger lifted his head to look at the window. He smiled menacingly, his wild eyes agleam and wispy black mist hissed out between his teeth.
Aileen released a series of piercing shrieks that sent the man running and brought her husband and his brother from a close field. They found her standing in the yard with the dead birds.
Gabriel Burkett stood holding the rooster, absently stroking its dead feathers. He studied Aileen intensely, nodding along with her words as she pointed to the grassy hill behind the farmhouse, describing how the lithe brown man had sprung away like a startled deer.
Ronald McCutcheon had taken a rifle and gone over the hill behind the house, searching the edge of the woods that blurred to green and black shadows, while Ronald’s brother had gone to fetch
the veterinarian and Edgar Gould, the chief of police.
“Sounds like that fellow from the circus,” the chief said.
Gabe nodded; the thought had occurred to him, too. He set the rooster down and bent to examine a hen.
The chief was tall, with silvery hair and spectacles. He turned a slow circle, squinting. A search of the farm buildings had been fruitless. He watched Gabe for a moment. It was unusual for him to see the animal doctor in a state of puzzlement.
“Did he break their necks?” the Chief asked.
“No. No signs of violence whatsoever,” Gabe reported.
“What do you make of that black on the beaks? Looks like carbon from a fire.”
There was a strange burnt smell in the air.
“So it does,” Gabe agreed.
Ronald McCutcheon poked at one of the birds with his boot. “So, you don’t know how he killed them?”
Gabe shook his head. “I suggest you don’t eat any of them, Ronald. He may have used some kind of poison. I’d like to take one with me to do a post-mortem.”
“A what?”
“An examination.”
“Oh. Of course,” Ronald said.
“Well,” the Chief said, “let me know if you find anything, Gabe. I’m goin’ home—all these dead birds are makin’ me hungry.”
“Don’t stay up too late,” Audrey said. She kissed Gabe’s forehead and went upstairs to bed.
When he finished with the chicken, the man moved from his examination room with its silvery tools and tables, its jars and bottles and sharp chemical smells. He settled in the modest library that looked out on moon-haunted pines. The two candles he had taken from inside the elephant were still hidden in the desk. He wondered if they would tell him more than the body of the bird had.
The examination had mystified Gabe. The hen appeared normal but for two things: the dark scorch-like black on the beak, and the heart, which was brittle and shrivelled, like a dried prune.
Following a moment of hesitation, Gabe lit one of the stout fleshy candles. He folded his arms tight against his chest, but a chill found him through his clothes. Soft images blurred out of the hazy nimbus around the flame. It was as if he were in a moving vehicle, watching through a watery window.
There were familiar fields and houses. Familiar roads. At one point he seemed to be witnessing a view from a neighbour’s roof, then he was crossing the dark slow waters of the Assabet River, where he had played as a boy. It was night and the visions came like living paintings, travelling north. Through Northborough, the western corner of Marlborough, into Berlin. A house loomed, a dark window close, then inside, up some stairs. A door opened. It was a closet. Clothing hung in darkness. Then the first candle burned out and the air smelled scorched.
Trembling, Gabe lit
the second candle, and its ghastly glow was full of ghostly motion. Outside the house in Berlin a sweet-faced old dog looked up, then sagged to the ground. Moon-suggested roads passed. A raccoon; it fell over on the earth, kicked, lay still.
The candle was shrinking. There were only fields and woods now.
“Landmarks,” Gabe whispered urgently, “show some landmarks!”
The candle was sputtering. The pictures in the air above his desk grew dim and faded.
“Damn!” Gabe pounded the desk. The images had only shown him the direction, not the destination.
There was a trail of dead animals, like breadcrumbs, scattered from Eastborough to Berlin. Dead cows, dead wildlife, dead pets. Gabe’s heart ached. He saw the faces of farmers, their eyes dark with woe as they observed fallen flocks, the wet eyes of children cradling limp kittens and loyal sightlessly staring hounds. Brooding with a thin old man in a pasture where sheep lay crumpled like shrapnel from an exploded cloud, Gabe turned to the fellow and asked, “Is there a gunsmith in this town?”
The Browning 1903 was a small, simple automatic. It was comfortable in the hand and flat for easy concealment in a pocket or a waistband. Gabe hated guns. Gabe handed the gunsmith some bills and turned to leave. A box of bullets and the weapon added alien weight to his coat. He pushed the door open and the bell on it jingled.
It was bright outside and he moved to his horse, Sarah, who was tied outside. He stepped around to her left and came face to face with the thin brownish man he had seen climb out of the dead elephant.
The man smiled. He was dressed in fine clothes and his hair was combed back, tame. He was handsome, charming in the way he carried himself, some might think.
“Hunting does not suit you, Doctor,” the man said, his face too close. His breath had a burnt smell. “Shouldn’t you be off helping some crippled duck or something?”
Gabe could not locate his voice at first.
The man reached up and stroked Sarah’s warm brown neck.
“What are you?” Gabe’s voice quavered.
“A puppet,” the man said cheerily, “just like you. We’re all puppets to our natures. Unfortunately our natures seem to be at odds. You’re good at helping creatures, and I... ”
The man turned so that his mouth was several inches from the horse’s snout and he exhaled a burst of black mist. Sarah gasped and collapsed sideways, her great weight thumping dead on the dusty street.
“No!” Gabe cried.
The brown man grinned, turned, and darted away. Gabe fumbled his weapon out, tried to remember how to remove the clip from the bottom of the handle, finally managed that and, with quaking hands, attempted to slip bullets into the magazine, the way the gunsmith had shown him.
It was too late. The man had pranced like an antelope down Berlin’s main street, past the big brick bank, the pale stone library, and the shops with great gleaming windows, and was gone. Gabe dropped the gun and knelt by his horse in the road, running his hand over her face as tears ran down his own.
Summer passed and September came, the days growing cooler as the frost moved downward from Canada—slow and steady steps of ice. The days ever shorter, afternoon balanced on a quiet sense of expectation, and a growing sense of resignation.
Gabe had returned to a world of normalcy. For weeks he had gone into the woods to practice shooting with the small pistol, telling Audrey he was going for walks. He had gotten quite accurate, but now the gun sat in a drawer in his desk, in the library.
He no longer brooded over maps, speculating on where his enemy might have gone, or might be headed. The trail had ended in Concord. Some dairy cows had died mysteriously, he had heard, and their faces had born the tell-tale scorching. But that was the last incident; there were no more reports of strange animal deaths. Perhaps it was for the best, he thought. That monster could probably have dropped him just as easily as it had dropped Sarah. It was a powerful opponent, and likely imbued with uncanny sensitivities, for it had recognized Gabe and even appeared to know his intentions.
Life seemed right, sitting there on the porch with his Audrey, watching the sky go from orange to pink to cool September blue; she with her knitting and soft greying hair, the loose strands from her bun giving her a girlish look. Gabe looked out over the trees and knew there was a vast world out there, with great bustling cities, and exotic countries, each with their own marvels and charms, but he loved the simple things and the familiar. He did not hunger to roam and explore. The hills and fields, the old homes and stone walls, the orchards and woods of the town he loved were enough for him.
Gabe gazed over at Audrey as she rocked, humming. He smiled, and his smile was both hopeful and sad.
“Motorcars,” Gabe muttered disdainfully, hunched over the injured pig.
Sam Maynard, the farmer, paced in the dirt, cursing beneath his breath. His twelve-year-old son, who had been learning to drive their year-old Indiana-made Black Crow, stood guiltily near, pouting.
The animal was well-behaved, under the circumstances. It lay on its side breathing nervously, kicked a bit at first, but did not struggle or try to escape. Gabe spoke to it in a comforting whisper as he worked, checking the injured leg for broken bones, of which, fortunately, there were none.
At last the veterinarian looked up. “It might have been much worse, I should say. No breaks. The wound is not so bad; no need for stitches.”
Maynard was relieved and smiled. “She made such a sound when he hit her—scared the Devil out of me!”
“That’s because she was scared more than hurt, I’d be willing to say,” Gabe ventured.
Treatment was simple enough. He cleaned the wound and dusted it with powdered iodoform before bandaging.
Gabe rose, tall and straight, and clapped his hands together. He checked his pocket watch, slipped it back into his vest. “She’ll be fine, Sam, just keep her out of the mud until that heals over.”
The farmer barked at his son,” Get her into the hog house and clean yourself up for supper.”
Turning to the doctor, the man spoke more softly, “You’re welcome to stay and have a bite, Gabe. The missus is baking a chicken.”
“You’re kind to offer, Sam, but my missus is, too, and she’s queen of the world when it comes to baked chicken.” Gabe chuckled. “I best be off.”
Sam walked Gabe to his new horse, Nipmuck. The tall man mounted and before heading off, asked, “Say, Sam, how’s that prized hog of yours doing? Did that ginger clear up the indigestion?”
“It sure did, just like you said. In fact, we’re taking her up to Derry, New Hampshire, come Saturday—there’s a big fair up there, you know. You might want to take your Audrey up for the day; have yourself a good time. I hear there’s to be an apple-pie contest and an ox pull and even a talking cow, if you can believe a thing like that.”
“A talking cow?”
“That’s what they say.” Sam chortled.
Gabe shivered. “Well, Sam, feels like it’s going to be a cold night. I better be on my way.”
“A hundred dollars?” Dan Muir exclaimed. “Well sure, Doc, I’ll drive you. Hell, I’ll drive you to Timbuktu for a hundred dollars.”
“Excellent,” Gabe said stiffly. He left McTaggart’s Pub, where he had known he’d find young Muir, and rode swiftly to his cosy home, which somehow felt warmer, filled with the smell of baked chicken. But Gabe’s appetite had been compromised, and he could do little more than dream into the steam wisping up from his plate.
In the morning, after slipping into his library and fumbling in the desk, he told Audrey that he was going for a walk, to take in the changing foliage in the woods.
Muir came by the house shortly after nine o’clock and tooted his horn. Gabe thought the Model T looked like a cross between a coffin and an insect, black and gleaming in the September sunlight.
“Ready, Doc?” Dan Muir called.
Halfway between his porch and the idling metal monstrosity, Gabe turned and gazed back at Audrey, who stood smiling unsuspe
ctingly. He wanted to have a good long look at her, in case it was his last.
Over roads of gravel and dirt, roads soft with mud and crisp with leaves, they travelled north. On through Middlesex County, through the city of Lowell, with its great brick mills churning, up into Collinsville, with green pastures, golden haystacks, and rustling acres of corn.
They crossed into New Hampshire, and the road was a lonely ribbon of brown through dark pine forest. Hawks hung like kites in the clear sky and hills of blue haze rose up.
Small villages passed, white churches looming brightly against changing maples and ragged spires of fir. Gabe, quiet and too distracted to focus on his own fear of travelling in the Ford, grinned when they came upon one of those motorized buggies, commonly called high-wheelers, stuck in the muddy road. Popular with farmers and built to negotiate such rural routes, the buggy’s thin wheels were no match for the deep dark puddle that dominated a low point in the path. The farmer had hitched a massive draft horse to his technological wonder. Gabe chuckled bitterly when the horse pulled the buggy free.
“All of these contraptions would be better off with horses pulling them,” Gabe declared.
“Don’t blame the machine,” Muir said. “It’s the driver’s shortcomings that got him stuck.” He manoeuvred the Model T onto the grassy bank of the road, around the puddle and the embarrassed farmer, and sped onward.
Dan Muir gave Gabe a funny look when the veterinarian handed him the hundred dollars upon arriving at the county fair in Derry.
