Two farmers who had heard the fight came out from an access trail behind the stand of linden trees. Practical men accustomed to animal blood, they both understood that the Doberman was lifeless. One farmer put a hand on the other owner’s shoulder. The one comforting the young fellow looked over at his mate, who nodded and went back down the trail in silence. Peter took a handkerchief and mopped blood from Jasper’s face. The remaining farmer, needing to do something, proffered his own kerchief. Peter requested the bottle of water sitting by the roadside by Jasper’s leash. As the farmer retrieved the water, Peter saw him look at the lead and then at the sandy-haired man, who carried no leash. He kept silent.
In a few minutes, the second farmer appeared with a small lorry with an open bed. Peter hoisted Jasper onto the back and climbed in with her. The farmer headed up the country road, while the other man stayed behind to deal with the stunned owner of the Doberman.
As best he could, Peter counted Jasper’s pulse; he roughly estimated 120 beats per minute and he guessed that his dog might be going into shock. The wounds on her legs and forehead were beginning to clot but the blood at the shoulder joint continued to ooze. The best sign was her steady breathing.
The country vet smiled kindly when he saw the dog and his owner, both saturated with blood, enter his reception room. Living in the middle of hundreds of farms, he had seen every kind of animal wound, and so perhaps he was allowed to be philosophical. Even now, he maintained his affable nature. Peter sized him up as the kind of cheerful vet would some day self-publish his cheerful memoirs.
“So, what we have here is the winner,” he said as Peter carried Jasper into the surgery at the back of the farmhouse. In a perfect imitation of Bruce Willis, he added, “You should see the other guy.”
“The other one is dead,” Peter retorted.
“And what breed was he?” the vet said, not contrite at all.
“Doberman.”
“Not the one I would expect to win. For that reason, I will save your dog.”
The veterinarian asked Peter to assist. This wasn’t sentiment; his assistant was out dosing a horse for colic and he judged Peter to be in control of himself.
“You’re a policeman, aren’t you?” the doctor, who was about Peter’s age, asked. Peter, exhausted, grunted. Why does everyone peg me as a copper?
Peter later described the vet as self-possessed, obviously a man of immense experience. In fact, Peter thought, he was a lot like a good policeman: when you have seen every kind of tragedy, you compliment the victims by being good at your job. They washed Jasper with a small hose and swathed her in towels. The evident priority was the shoulder injury, which the vet stopped from bleeding with antiseptic and masterfully quick sutures. He injected her with amoxicillin. The bigger problem, he proclaimed, was the knee joint and the carpus of her front leg, where the other dog had bitten through to the bone.
“The shoulder will heal but the broken leg can result in a bad limp. Choices to be made, Inspector.”
In the midst of this chaos, Peter could not help asking, “How did you know I’m a policeman?”
“Inspector, you have lived in this county a long time. Not as long as I, but never mind. Everyone knows you by reputation or from seeing you on your strolls. The famous Chief Inspector Cammon and his dog. Now, here’s what we are going to do. We will repair the cruciate ligament . . .”
Peter’s mobile rang in his blood-soaked pocket. He flipped it open while the veterinarian began the procedure.
“Dad, It’s Michael. Maddy’s in labour, short contractions. We’re at the hospital.”
“I should be there,” was all Peter could manage.
“The nurses say it may be hours, or it could be fast. You don’t have to rush to get here.”
“I promised her, Michael. I said I would be there.”
Peter broke down in tears in the middle of the clinic. The vet pretended not to notice, but to signal the urgency of Jasper’s condition he pulled out an apron and draped it over Peter’s shoulder.
Peter recovered sufficiently to explain to his son about the dog fight.
“Stay with Jasper, Dad.” Michael’s voice was firm and implied that Peter needed instruction on his priorities. Five times, Peter promised to drive up to Leeds as soon as possible.
He hung up reluctantly and told the doctor about the baby. The man nodded, not so much in sympathy but to get Peter back to the table. Peter struggled into the apron as the vet tossed a clean towel to his new assistant.
“Swab the wound whenever it floods.”
The veterinarian had put Jasper under anaesthetic but he talked to her, rather than Peter, as he worked. He leaned close to the dog’s ear. “I could say something about the Lord taking away and giving back. . . . Bark once if you agree.”
The two men worked steadily through to late afternoon. Putting down his instruments, the vet turned to Peter and grinned, but this time it was a proud smile. “This dog will fully recover. You can take that to the bank.”
The mobile rang again. “How’s Jasper?” Maddy said. Her voice was raw.
Peter glanced at the doctor, who was bandaging the dog’s right leg. Peter said, “She’ll be perfectly fine. I’ll be up tonight, maybe. There’s a lot of blood but . . .”
The vet glanced at Peter. The “famous” Chief Inspector Cammon was afraid of a little blood. His daughter-in-law and the vet seemed to achieve a form of psychic connection at that moment. The silence at Maddy’s end and the look on the vet’s face were judgemental in the same way.
Peter reverted to his fatherly persona. It was the best he could manage. “How frequent are the pains?”
The vet shook his head, with the opprobrium of a man telling another man that he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Maddy shouted at him, so that he had to hold the mobile away from his ear; even the vet could hear her. “I’m at the door of the delivery room. Peter, if you abandon Jasper to come up here I will never talk to you again. I have to go.”
“Wait! What are you calling the child?” the vet shouted back from his side of the operating table.
“Joseph Peter Tommy Cammon,” Maddy called back through the line.
HISTORICAL NOTE
John Wilkes Booth travelled to Montreal in October of 1864 and conspired with the blockade runner Patrick Martin. This much is known. Whether he also made contact with British officials or the Confederate “commissioners” from Richmond remains a matter for speculation, and perhaps further historical research. One of the best academic studies of Canada’s reaction to the “War of the Rebellion” remains Canada and the United States: The Civil War Years by Robin W. Winks (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960).
DAVID WHELLAMS spent 30 years working in criminal law and amending the Criminal Code in such areas as dangerous offenders and terrorism. His first novel in the Peter Cammon series is Walking into the Ocean. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
Copyright © David Whellams, 2013
Published by ECW Press
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resem
blance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Whellams, David, 1948–
The drowned man / David Whellams.
(A Peter Cammon mystery)
ISBN 978-1-77041-148-7 (BOUND); 978-1-77041-043-5 (PBK)
ALSO ISSUED AS: 978-1-77090-366-1 (PDF); 978-1-77090-367-8 (EPUB)
I. Title. II. Series: Whellams, David, 1948– Peter Cammon
mystery.
PS8645.H45D76 2013 C813'.6 C2012-907518-3
Cover images: Stain © Panupong Roopyai / iStockphoto.com,
man illustration © 4x6 / iStockphoto.com
Cover and text design: Tania Craan
Author photo by Jennifer Barnes JB Photography
The publication of The Drowned Man has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, and by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. The marketing of this book was made possible with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
The Drowned Man Page 43
