Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  “Sounds interesting,” McCoy said. “Where is this?”

  “A good distance from the Federation,” Jim said. “We’ll take an elliptical course to it, so that we pass through uncharted space on the way there and on the way back. We’ll traverse about a thousand light-years, and explore throughout the entire journey.”

  “A thousand light-years?” McCoy asked, stunned. “How long do you expect this mission to last?”

  “That depends on what we find along the way, but we estimate between five and eight years.” Jim stopped pacing and faced McCoy. “Bones, I want you to go with us.”

  “Me?” McCoy said. “Jim, I appreciate that you want me to go along, but I’ve got research I’m conducting.”

  “You told me what you’re working on,” Jim said. “The Fabrini medical database, Vegan choriomeningitis, comparative alien physiology, the discrepancies in M’Benga numbers. They’re all things you can continue to do on the Enterprise.”

  “I suppose that’s true, but…” McCoy started. But what? he asked himself. He’d enjoyed the time he’d spent as the Enterprise’s chief medical officer, and he could still carry on his research onboard. The ship did have state-of-the-art medical labs. Would a shipboard schedule allow him the freedom, though? “I don’t know that I’d have the time I needed to continue doing what I’m doing,” he said at last.

  “I understand,” Jim said. “But Chapel’s still signed on as the ship’s CMO. If she’s willing, maybe the two of you could share the position. That might give you the time you want for your research. Plus—” Jim placed his hand flat on his chest. “—you’ve got a carrier of Vegan choriomeningitis right here, as well as the single largest discrepancy in M’Benga numbers ever recorded.”

  “Well, that’s true,” McCoy said. One of the reasons he’d gravitated to finding a possible cure for infection by the arenavirus had been the fact that Jim carried it, and his research into M’Benga numbers had been a direct result of the readings he’d taken of Jim and the rest of the crew. But McCoy had also settled into a life in Atlanta and at the university. Did he really want to go back into space, especially for such a prolonged voyage? “Jim, I don’t know,” he said. “This isn’t something I expected or planned on.”

  Jim nodded. “I know,” he said. “A month ago, it wasn’t something I’d expected either. But the opportunity’s arisen, and I thought you might want…I hoped you might want to be a part of it.”

  “I might,” McCoy said. “I don’t know. I need time to think about it.”

  “You can have two weeks,” Jim said. “It’ll take that long to provision the ship and finalize crew assignments.”

  “All right,” McCoy said, rising up from the sofa.

  “Good,” Jim said, and he walked over to him. “Whatever you decide, Bones, thank you for what you did.” They shook hands, a warm and meaningful gesture between old friends. McCoy nodded, but didn’t feel the need to say anything more. Jim let go of his hand, then turned and left.

  McCoy watched him go, not moving until the doors had closed behind the captain. Admiral, he reminded himself. Except that while Jim might be a Starfleet admiral, he’d also once more regained the position that fit him so well: starship captain.

  McCoy crossed back into the sleeping section of his quarters, picked up his duffel, and pulled the carry strap over his shoulder. He would go back to Atlanta and do what he’d told Jim he would: think about this opportunity to rejoin the Enterprise. Right now, he had no idea what he would decide.

  Thirty

  1934/1936

  Gregg Anderson looked up from the piece of paper on his desk when he heard footsteps tapping on the floor of the lobby. In the dying light of the late September evening, he saw Billy Jenkins ambling in with Lenny McCoy. “I got him,” Billy said as the two made their way through the small door in the low wall that separated Town Hall’s lobby from its main room.

  “Yup, we can see that, Billy,” Anderson said. “Evening, Doc. Thanks for coming in.” Anderson noticed that, as Lenny always did these days, he carried his black doctor’s bag with him. “Hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

  “Evening, Gregg,” Lenny said. “No, I was just at home reading.”

  “Just take a seat anywhere,” Billy said, then shuffled his old bones over to his desk. At fifty-five, he was only a couple of years younger than Anderson himself, but not nearly as healthy. Pained by arthritis, Billy walked slowly and carefully, as though his legs might collapse beneath him at any moment. When he reached his desk, he lowered himself down awkwardly, leaning heavily on the arms of his chair. Audie Glaston, at forty the youngest member of the town council, already sat at his own desk.

  Lenny glanced around, as though trying to decide where to sit. Several rows of wooden chairs sat on this side of the half-wall, lined up on either side of the door, forming an aisle between them. Lenny sat down in the first row, nearest the desks of the three men. “So what can I do for you?” he asked. “Billy said you had some town business you wanted to discuss with me.”

  “We do,” Anderson said. “But first I just wanna say again how much we all appreciated what you said at Doc Lyles’s funeral the other day.” After Pastor Gallagher had said his piece out at the cemetery last week, Lenny had asked if he could say a few words. “We know y’all didn’t know the doctor near as long as we all did, so it was real nice that you wanted to say something. And what you said, well, everybody liked it a whole lot.” Billy and Audie nodded and added their agreements.

  “Thanks,” Lenny said. “I wanted to do it. Doc Lyles didn’t really trust me when I first came to Hayden, but he didn’t let that stop him from letting me help the folks in town when he found out I was a doctor too.”

  “Everybody liked and respected him,” Billy said. “’Twas a real shame when Leticia passed on. At least they’re together again now.”

  “Folks told me Doc Lyles took it hard when he lost his wife,” Lenny said. “They said he didn’t talk much to people after that.”

  “Nope, he sure didn’t,” Audie said. “He kept pretty much to himself after she died.”

  “He didn’t talk to me all that much either, except about medicine,” Lenny said. “But I still considered him a friend.”

  “Everybody liked him,” Billy repeated. Silence drifted over the men, and for a few seconds, nobody spoke.

  Finally, Anderson said, “Well, I guess we better get to this.” He looked down again at the paper on his desk. “Doc, we asked you to come on in here ’cause of Doctor Lyles.” He picked up the paper and held it up for Lenny to see. “This is his last will and testament.”

  “All right,” Lenny said haltingly, obviously still not quite sure why the town council had wanted to see him.

  “The doc owned his house and everything in it, the piece of property it sat on, and his car,” Anderson said. “He also had a little bit of money in the bank. He left all of it, everything he owned, to Hayden.”

  “Hayden?” Lenny said. “You mean he left it to the whole town.”

  “Yup,” Billy said. “I guess he was looking out for us.”

  “We been talking about it,” Audie said, pointing in a circle to include all of the town council, “but it seems pretty clear to all of us what he wanted.”

  “What’s that?” Lenny asked.

  “He knew that folks here would need a doctor,” Anderson said, “so he left a place for him to stay, with all of his equipment and medicine and things. He even left his car so the new doctor would have a way of getting around to make calls on sick folks.”

  “So,” Audie said, “we was hoping you was planning on staying with us here in Hayden, Doc. With Doctor Lyles gone, we need you now more than ever.”

  “I’ve been here for over two years,” Lenny said. “I got no plans to go anywhere. Hayden’s my home now.”

  “Well, if you want,” Anderson said, “you can have another home. We’d like you to move into Doc Lyles’s house. The town would still own it, but you could use it
for as long as you want. Since it’s already got a doctor’s office in it, and equipment and medicine and all, we figured it would be perfect for you.”

  “You can also use Doc Lyles’s car too,” Billy added.

  Lenny didn’t say anything right away, and Anderson thought that something might be wrong. “Doc,” he said, “you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Lenny said. “I’m just…I’m real pleased that y’all want me to stay and be your town doctor.”

  “Well, of course,” Audie said. “You been doing it now for a while anyway.”

  “I know, but…” Lenny said, but didn’t finish the thought. Then he said, “What about the money in the bank?”

  “What about it?” Billy asked.

  “What’re you gonna do with it?” Lenny wanted to know.

  “We ain’t figured that one out yet,” Audie said.

  “I was just thinking,” Lenny said, standing up from his chair, “if some folks in town get sick and need medicine but can’t afford it, maybe you could use the money to buy it for them.”

  Anderson hadn’t thought of that, but once he heard the notion, he liked it. “I think that’s a great idea, Lenny,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Billy said. “We should talk about it.” They all agreed that they would consider it.

  “Well, that’s all we needed you for,” Anderson said to Lenny. “You can move in whenever you want.”

  Lenny nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “I suppose I’ll…oh.”

  “What is it?” Anderson asked.

  “I just thought of Missus Hartwell,” Lenny said. “She’s going to be disappointed about me moving out.”

  Audie laughed. “Listen,” he said, “Mrs. Hartwell calls that place a boarding house, but she’s maybe had three folks stay there in the last fifteen years. She’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Lenny said. “Thanks again.”

  “We’re just happy we still have a town doctor,” Anderson said. As he watched Lenny head out of Town Hall, he felt sad that William Lyles had died, but he also felt certain that they had the right man to replace him.

  The delivery truck arrived from Greenville later than usual, pulling up to Robinson’s General Store in midafternoon. McCoy peered at it from across the commons, which bustled with activity on this unseasonably warm day. With spring still a month in the future and the weeks past brisk at best, it felt good to be outside beneath the energizing rays of the sun. Many of the people in town obviously thought so as well, some strolling about, others sitting on benches or on the grass, a few of them still dressed in their Sunday best after church. The Palmer boys, Justin and Henry, now in their mid-teens, threw a baseball around, and Danny Johnson sat up on the railing of the gazebo, blowing out the occasional tune on his trumpet. Sheriff Gladdy and his wife Beth had spread out a blanket and now shared a picnic lunch with Mabel and Macnair Duncan.

  McCoy read the words painted on the side of the box truck in Old English characters: Greenville Journal Gazette. A rendering in the lower rear corner showed a man holding the newspaper open and reading it. In a few minutes, McCoy would walk over, as he always did, and pick up a paper.

  “Do you know about the REA?” Lynn asked him. She sat next to McCoy on the bench, waiting for Phil to finish purchasing what they needed at the Seed and Feed. This year, they would plant half of their acreage, up from a quarter last year, and from nothing the year before.

  “Yup, the REA,” McCoy said, attempting to recall the precise words for which the letters stood. Like many of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs—AAA, CCC, PWA, WPA, and the like—its title had been shortened to just its initials. McCoy remembered the REA without too much trouble, as he’d taken note of it last May, when the president had issued an executive order authorizing its creation. At the time, McCoy had thought that the program could have a significant impact on the people of Hayden. “The Rural Electrification Administration,” he said.

  “Right,” Lynn said. “Well, Gregg and Audie and Billy Jenkins drove down to Walter’s Bluff last week and talked with the men on their town council about the REA, and those folks in Walter’s Bluff already talked to the folks in Weberville and Plattston and Colonee and almost all them towns all the way down to Greenville. They’re forming a cooperative so we can work with the REA to bring electricity out to all those places.”

  “That’s great,” McCoy said, genuinely enthused. He’d lived for two years in New York City in what he would then have described as primitive conditions, but at least there he’d had power and indoor plumbing. For the last four years, he’d lived without either, and had really come to understand the importance of both. More than just a matter of convenience, it impacted people’s health. McCoy could cite the clear and direct case of Dr. Lyles, whom sixty amperes and five thousand volts might’ve been able to save by allowing the defibrillation of his heart, but he’d also seen less obvious effects of not having electricity. Without deliverable power, there could be no automatic pumps to drive water into homes, and so people bathed by drawing water out of a well and heating it on the stove. As a result of the effort involved, people tended to bathe only once or twice a week, and sometimes in water shared by family members, a practice that facilitated the transmission of disease. The holes dug beneath outhouses also represented a threat, providing a breeding ground for bacteria.

  “The cooperative needs every town in it to have at least two families for every mile of power line,” Lynn said, her excitement evident. “Walter’s Bluff is thirty-five miles away, plus they figure we need maybe twenty-five miles of wires in Hayden itself. That means we have to have at least a hundred and twenty families sign up. So me and Mabel Duncan and Virginia Slattery are gonna talk to folks in town. We’re gonna try and sign everybody up, and I just hope we’re able to.”

  “Why wouldn’t folks want electricity brought to town?” McCoy asked.

  “It’s not that they don’t want it,” Lynn explained. “It’s that the cooperative’s charging eight dollars to every family to become a member. I think most folks’ll be able to join, but that’s a lot of money, specially these days.”

  “It is,” McCoy said. After six years living in the twentieth century, he still hadn’t become accustomed to how much economic concerns drove everyday life. “Listen, if you find some folks who don’t have enough to give to the cooperative, let me know, okay?” McCoy had saved some money over the past few years, and the town also had most of the small inheritance left by Dr. Lyles. McCoy would have to go to Gregg Anderson about using Doc Lyles’s money, but between that and his own savings, he thought they should be able to assist everybody in Hayden in signing up with the cooperative.

  Lynn reached forward and put her hand on McCoy’s knee. “How’d I know I could count on you to help?” she said.

  “Just doing my part like everybody else,” he said. It felt good to be a part of such a tightly knit community.

  “Hey, you two,” Phil said, walking up to the bench from behind. McCoy looked up and greeted his friend. “I got everything we need,” Phil told Lynn. “You ready to go?”

  “You’re not still planning on working on the Lord’s day, are you?” Lynn asked.

  “The Lord’s not gonna like it if we get to planting season and we’re not ready to plant,” Phil said. “I know we’re only seeding half a crop, but we’re already behind in preparing the land.”

  “All right,” Lynn said. “But only for an hour or two.”

  “Even that’d help,” Phil said. He and Lynn said their good-byes, then headed over to where they’d parked the truck by the Seed and Feed after church. McCoy watched them go, then looked over at Robinson’s. When the newspaper truck left a few minutes later, he stood from the bench and walked through the commons, across Mill Road, and into the general store. There, he paid his nickel to the owner, Turner Robinson, picked up a Sunday paper from the pile, and walked back outside. He saw two children, Millicent and Tommy Denton, now climbing over the bench he’d just been sitting on, and
so he headed on over to the gazebo. He greeted Danny Johnson with a wave, then sat down on the steps and opened his paper.

  As Danny blew out a strangely upbeat version of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” McCoy read through the headlines, skimming most of the articles and looking more closely at those that interested him. When he turned the page, he almost dropped the paper. There, near the top of the middle column, he saw a picture of Edith Keeler. She wore her hair up, as she had when he’d been in New York, and he recognized the blouse she wore and the locket hanging around her neck. A caption beneath the photograph identified her by name, and the article that followed carried the title, FDR MEETS SLUM ANGEL. McCoy read through the two paragraphs.

  Feb. 23, 1936—During his visit to New York, President Roosevelt met yesterday afternoon with the city’s so-called “slum angel,” Edith Keeler. Speaking with her for some time in a back room at the 21st Street Mission, the soup kitchen she runs, he conferred with her about current and new plans to help the needy of this country. A Federal official characterized the meeting as demonstrating before the world the U.S. government’s commitment to raising America out of the terrible economic state into which virtually all nations have fallen.

  A second topic of discussion involved the new organization Miss Keeler has founded, the American Pacifist Movement. Dedicated to preserving the peace of the world, the APM has in recent months boasted sizable increases in its membership. With the president, Miss Keeler spoke at length about maintaining the country’s neutrality and, where necessary, its isolationism. In particular, she warned against committing any troops to Italy’s conflict with Ethiopia, though she did support economic and moral sanctions against Rome.

  McCoy closed the newspaper and folded it in two. An assortment of emotions rose within him. For one thing, he found that he missed Edith. Though he had attempted to maintain his distance from her—and everybody else—when he’d been in New York, he had grown to like her a great deal. In his days at the 21st Street Mission, both in living in its back room and in continuing to volunteer there after he’d moved out, he’d spent quite a bit of time with her. He’d made new friends in Hayden, but that hadn’t taken away from the affection he still felt for her. He’d never written to her, as he’d promised to do, and he considered sending a letter now. But such an idea gave him pause. Although he’d accepted that he would spend the rest of his life on twentieth-century Earth, and that he’d already irretrievably altered history, New York and Edith seemed somehow tied to the cautious, solitary way of life he’d adopted when he’d first arrived in the past. McCoy realized that he might well be compounding the changes to the timeline with every action he took here in Hayden, but it still seemed more dangerous to him to reconnect with Edith and his two years in New York. It didn’t make much sense, but it affected him on a visceral level. He would have to think about it before deciding whether or not to write to his old friend.