Race for the Dying

by Steven F Havill

  “It will be a few minutes,” Alvi said. “We have only the one small gas sterilizer here.”

  “Then do it,” Thomas said. “Then we can see about transporting the boy to the operating theater at the clinic.”

  The young woman hesitated, and Thomas turned to look full at her. “Well? I need that probe, Alvi. And sterilize a Robert’s pericardial trocar at the same time.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  Thomas turned back to his patient. The wound bled scarcely at all, just a little, nasty slit in the pale skin. A quick survey showed no other obvious injuries. The boy’s hair was filthy, but no blood was crusted, no goose eggs betraying a blow to the skull. The knife wound, as insignificant as it might first appear, had been enough.

  Bruising around the edges of the wound showed where the handle of the knife had impacted the flesh, the bruise of the blunt trauma marking the outline clearly. The weapon had been small, with the sort of handle one would expect to see on a folding Barlow or similar efficient pocketknife—not the large guard found on a hunting knife. One side of the wound was sharply cut by the edge of the blade, the opposite side blunt…the typical wound from a single-edged weapon with a slender blade, driven in hard to the hilt.

  “Charlie, look at me.”

  “Thomas used his right thumb to lift first one eyelid and then the other. The boy’s eyes were glassy and unresponsive. His legs stopped walking. With the stethoscope once more in place, Thomas strained to hear the faint pulse. If the pericardium had been cut, or a nearby vessel, the blood would fill the sack around the heart, suffocating it to a standstill. If the heart itself was cut, then everything depended on the nature of the wound to the cardiac muscle.

  Like any muscle, the heart could heal from minimal injury, given time. A wound that actually punctured any of the heart’s chambers would be invariably fatal in all but the rarest of circumstances.

  Thomas sat back, resting his hip. It was so easy to slice open the thoracic cavity of a cadaver, resecting the ribs out of the way with a careless crunch of the shears, opening the way to examine the organs that lay underneath.

  “How did this happen?” he murmured, but Charlie Grimes had settled into a coma, his heart fluttering in protest as the flood closed around it, his breath coming in shallow jerks, his chest shivering rather than rising and falling in regular breaths.

  Footsteps thumped on the front porch, and Horace James appeared. “He’s on his way,” he announced.

  Even as he said that, Alvi reappeared.

  “We need one of the clinic’s ambulances,” Thomas said to Horace. “Can you arrange that?”

  “An ambulance?” the handyman said, puzzled.

  “It’ll be faster to use one of Lindeman’s buckboards with a hair mattress in the back,” Alvi interrupted. “The probe and aspirator will be ready in five minutes. It’s not a Roberts, but I think it will work.”

  Thomas thumped his fist on the arm of his chair in frustration, and as if in response, Charlie’s eyes snapped open and he rose partially on his elbows, mouth open wide. Easing him back down, Thomas once more adjusted the stethoscope. The rattle of the lad’s breath was loud, and for a moment his heart sped up, strong but irregular, to 160 beats a minute, then faster, impossibly fast. It stopped, missing ten or fifteen beats, then surged again for as many, then stopped. This time, it did not kick again. Charlie managed one more choppy breath and then his body sank into the divan.

  “Any wagon will do,” Thomas heard himself say. He continued to listen, astonished, as his first patient in Port McKinney expired under his touch.

  “He gone?” Horace asked.

  “Yes, he’s gone.” They heard footsteps on the porch, and Lars Lindeman limped to the door, opening it slowly as if he might disturb them.

  “My God,” he said, “what happened?”

  “Charlie was stabbed,” Alvi said. Her face was a mix of emotions.

  Lindeman advanced to the divan. He looked down at the boy. “Stabbed, you say?” The Mercantile owner’s face was pale, and he held his hand over his mouth as if trying to catch a burst of words that he regretted. “Where’d you find him?”

  “Right smack on the front step,” Horace replied. “I got up to see what that damn dog of yours was yammerin’ about, and there Charlie was. He was sittin’ on the top step.”

  “Well, I don’t know…” Lindeman started to say. “Christ, this is…” and his voice trailed off.

  “What is it?” They turned to see John Haines, hair disheveled, dark velvet gown bunched around his ample paunch.

  “Charlie Grimes has been killed,” Alvi said. “He died before we could do anything to help him.”

  Haines shuffled across the room, adjusting his glasses as he did so. At one point he appeared to lose his balance, and took a short step sideways to steady himself.

  Thomas removed the cloth, and Haines glanced at the wound, cocking his head sideways and holding his glasses for a better view. He shook his head and straightened up. “Damn shame,” he muttered and turned to his daughter. “Did you send someone to fetch Eastman?”

  “Not yet.”

  “That needs to be done before the body is taken to Winchell’s. Horace, will you see to that, please?”

  “I want to do a postmortem,” Thomas said quickly as Horace left the room. “If the remains can be removed to the clinic…”

  “Good God, man,” Haines said testily. “Whatever for? A single knife thrust to the heart. That’s fairly obvious, I should think. And autopsies are Winchell’s province, not ours. He’s the county coroner.”

  “Then I need to speak with him about that,” Thomas said. He looked at the small pan where the instruments waited. “If we could have treated him sooner—”

  “Sooner would have made no difference,” Haines said. “You could have been standing beside Mr. Grimes at the moment he was wounded, and there would be nothing you could do.” He sighed. “But suit yourself.” He regarded Thomas critically. “Don’t misunderstand me. We have no problem removing the body to the clinic, Thomas—if that’s what Winchell wants to do. It’s you that is at issue.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re hardly ready to stroll about town.”

  “But the boardwalk is nearly finished,” Thomas persisted. “And if not that, then a wagon.”

  “I see.” The corners of Haines’ eyes crinkled a bit. He watched as Alvi spread a blanket over Charlie Grimes’ corpse.

  “With your permission, I’ll be happy to remain at the clinic until I’m fully ambulatory.”

  “Oh, come, come,” Haines said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Hardly that. Besides, I don’t think we want to miss your company at the dinner table, or during our evening sessions in the library.” He took a deep breath and removed his glasses, holding them up to the nearest gaslight. “We’ll see what can be done. Now, tell me how this all happened.”

  “We don’t know,” Thomas said. “Horace found the boy on our front steps. The dog’s barking awoke us.”

  “I never heard him. You’re telling me that young Mr. Grimes was not brought here by companions, or the like? He stumbled here unassisted?”

  “We don’t know,” Alvi offered.

  “He could have been…well, hell. He could have been anywheres in town,” Lindeman said. “Got himself a taste for the bottle, I’m afraid. Always was a scrapper. Him stammerin’ didn’t help none. My guess is that he got himself in a scrap downtown, maybe. Someone stuck him there, or followed him back up the hill, maybe. I didn’t hear him one way or another. Didn’t hear nobody cry out. Didn’t hear no argument.”

  “Well, Eastman can sort it all out,” Haines said. “Damn unfortunate is what it is.” He turned and peered at the large grandfather clock. “What time is it? My God, just after one.”

  Alvi touched her father’s arm. “Go back to bed, Father. I’ll talk with
Butch when he rouses himself.”

  Haines nodded and shuffled closer to the divan. He reached down and pulled the blanket back to clear Charlie’s face, standing silently with the linen in hand. “Such a waste,” he said. “What was he, all of seventeen or eighteen?”

  “Would have been eighteen come Thanksgiving,” Lindeman said.

  “You don’t say?” He flipped the linen back and turned to Thomas. “You be careful, young man. You’re not ready for any of this.” To Alvi, he added, “See that he behaves himself, Alvina.”

  Voices outside announced visitors, and Haines grimaced with irritation. “I’m going back to bed,” he said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Zachary Riggs looked like Butch Eastman’s little brother. As burly as Riggs might have been, he appeared almost slight compared to the enormous constable. Eastman hadn’t waited for an invitation. He rapped a knuckle on the door and then entered with both Riggs and Horace James on his heels.

  He stopped just inside the room, hands on his hips, canvas coat splayed winglike. Thomas guessed the man weighed nearly three hundred pounds, standing well over six and a half feet tall. A tiny woolen pullover hat appeared ready to pop off the top of a round skull evenly cropped to resemble a ripe burdock.

  “Well, now,” Eastman said, his voice a light tenor that would have been expected from a schoolboy. His large, expressive brown eyes drew attention away from a badly pockmarked face. “You’re the new fellow,” he said. “I’m Edgar Eastman. Most folks call me Butch.” He didn’t offer his hand.

  “This is Dr. Thomas Parks,” Zachary Riggs said, stepping around the constable. “But what happened here? Horace told us that Charlie Grimes ran into a knife.” Riggs started to move forward toward the corpse, but Eastman reached out a hand and stopped him.

  “One thing at a time,” he said mildly, but the command in his voice was certain. “Show me,” he added to Thomas.

  Thomas wheeled his chair back and drew the blanket down to the victim’s waist. “A single wound,” he said. “It appears to have been inflicted with a small knife. Perhaps a jackknife or some such. After the postmortem, I’ll be able to tell you more.”

  “Is that right?” Eastman mused, and Thomas couldn’t tell if he was actually interested or not. “There are a good many knives in town.”

  “I would imagine there are.” Thomas wondered if the death of this young man was going to be dismissed with that vague statistic.

  Eastman looked down at the young doctor for a moment, his eyes inventorying the bandages, the chair, the awkward posture. “Where did you find him?”

  “The boy was sitting on our front step,” Horace interjected, and Eastman turned slowly in place to regard the older man, his expression blandly skeptical.

  “And you carried him inside?”

  “Yes. Horace and Alvi did,” Thomas said.

  Up to this point, Alvina Haines had said not a word, but stood in the entrance to the hallway, on the opposite side of the room from the divan. She had fetched a robe, and looked elegant, Thomas thought. Sadly elegant.

  “Good evening, young lady,” Eastman said. He turned his inventory on her, taking a long moment. “And who brought the body to one-oh-one?”

  “We don’t know that,” Thomas said. “As Horace already explained, he found Charlie sitting on the porch step.”

  “He cried out then?” Eastman’s voice sank to little more than a whisper.

  “No. Not that any of us heard.” Horace nodded in agreement.

  “Now that’s interesting, Doctor. Last I looked, it’s well past midnight. If the boy didn’t cry out, how did you discover his presence?”

  “The dog, sir,” Thomas said. “Prince set to barking, and it didn’t sound like he was about to stop until someone went out to see what the trouble was.”

  “I done that,” Horace said. “Damn dog was just going on. Like to drive me crazy.”

  “I see.” Eastman sidled close to the divan and bent down, peering at the wound. His brow furrowed with concentration. After a moment, he looked at Thomas without straightening up.

  “So tell me what you think, Doctor.”

  “What I think? Charlie was alive when I reached him. We were in the process of sterilizing some instruments when he died.”

  “About the wound. That’s what I mean.”

  “He was stabbed once. I think it was a fairly small knife, most likely a folder. You can see the bruising around the wound caused by the handle.”

  “Stabbed hard, then. Right hard on the hilt.”

  “Yes.”

  Eastman straightened up, his spine letting out a loud pop. He arched his back, then settled his shoulders. Turning, he surveyed the room. “So…none of you saw this?”

  Heads shook, and Eastman’s eyes rested on Horace James.

  “You went out to see what was fussing the dog. You didn’t see anyone running away?”

  “No, I sure enough didn’t.”

  “No one was with Charlie at that time?”

  “No, sir. There he set, back against the rail, head leaning back. I could see he was hurt.”

  “And what did he say to you?”

  “Not a word, Butch. Not a word.”

  “No response at all? He didn’t say who attacked him, or where the attack took place?”

  “No, sir, not a word.”

  Eastman turned to Lindeman, whose face was still pasty gray. “You didn’t see anyone on the street, Lars?” Lindeman shook his head. “You were asleep? They say the dog was barking.”

  “Oh, I hear him all the time, the damn mutt. I don’t pay no attention.”

  “You knew that Charlie was out somewhere, did you?”

  “He’s out all the time, Butch. You know that. He comes and goes as he pleases from that room I give him. I ain’t his mama.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Eastman said gently. The constable turned back and regarded the corpse. “Doctor Parker—”

  “Parks.”

  “Parks,” Eastman repeated. “Parks, Parks.” He nodded. “You think he could have gone far with a wound like that?”

  “There’s no way to tell, Mr. Eastman. There have been cases of victims who suffered more devastating injuries than this who then walked a considerable distance afterward. There’s no way to tell how far Charlie managed.”

  “All right.” Eastman surveyed the room again and nodded at Alvi. “Your father’s not home at the moment?”

  “He’s in bed,” Alvi said. “I don’t think he needs to be bothered.”

  “No, I guess he doesn’t,” Eastman agreed. “Did you see any of this, young lady?”

  “I heard Horace get up to tend to the dog,” Alvi said. “He came to fetch me when he saw what the trouble was.”

  “And then you woke Dr…Parks.”

  “I was already awake,” Thomas said quickly. “But yes. She came and fetched me.”

  “Not much you could do in any case, it appears.”

  “No. It turned out that there wasn’t.”

  Eastman heaved a vast sigh. “That’s that, I guess. I’ll have Winchell come and fetch the body.”

  “Actually, I want to do a postmortem,” Thomas said.

  Eastman raised an eyebrow. “You discuss that with Winchell. Then maybe I’ll talk with you in a day or so.”

  “Certainly.”

  Eastman turned to Zachary Riggs. “You about ready?”

  “I think I should tend to things here,” Riggs said quickly. “We need to move the…” He stopped, and Thomas found his lack of words surprising. “I need to see what Dr. Parks wants to do.”

  “Well, then, I’ll leave you to it.” Eastman nodded politely at each person in turn, and offered his hand to Thomas. “I heard about your misfortune,” he said. “You’ll be up and around before long?”

  “I certainly h
ope so.”

  “You need anything now, I’m just down the street. Any of these folks can tell you.”

  “Thank you.”

  The room seemed empty when Eastman left, and for a moment, there was silence. Alvi approached the divan and once more pulled the blanket up, taking a moment to stroke a strand of blond hair away from Charlie Grimes’ face.

  “Well,” Zachary Riggs said. “This is a sorry state of affairs indeed. I really liked that boy.” He looked down at Thomas thoughtfully. “You’re hurting. Pale as that sheet.”

  “Just sore, Zachary. It’s nothing. I want to know who did this.”

  “Of course. That’s only natural. We all do, I’m sure. Unfortunately, such things are commonplace around the camps.”

  “I hadn’t thought of one-oh-one as a camp,” Thomas replied. “Will Eastman do anything about this?”

  “Ah, don’t underestimate Edgar Eastman,” Riggs said. “He and I were just playing chess when Horace interrupted.” He smiled tightly. “And I hate to admit it, but Butch was winning. When he says that he’s interested in your findings, he means every word.”

  “Can I leave transfer of the body to you?”

  “Of course,” Riggs said. “Winchell will have two men come around first thing in the morning.”

  “I’d prefer now,” Thomas said, and Riggs looked at him with surprise.

  “Now? You’re not—”

  “If someone would carry my chair down the front steps, I can ride along in the wagon. I can’t sleep anyway, and I need to know.”

  “Good heavens, man. Need to know what?” Riggs said.

  “Just…I need to know whatever…there is to know,” Thomas finished lamely. “That’s all. Nothing is served by waiting.”

  Zachary Riggs thrust his hands in his pockets, frowning at the figure on the divan. For a long time he stood that way, musing, and Thomas wondered what the physician was considering.

  “All right,” Riggs said finally. “I’ll rouse Winchell and see to moving the body.” He turned his frown on Thomas. “But at least do us the favor of waiting for daylight before you attempt the trip to the clinic, Doctor.”