Ben Soul

by Richard George

Evidently, she wanted a certain patient, as she turned and went directly down the hall to a specific room. Sister Beatified nodded to the nurse on duty and followed the mysterious woman. The duty nurse paid no particular attention to the familiar nun. The staff accepted her goings and comings as part of the background of the hospital.

  Sister Beatified followed the woman into a room. She noted the room number. Ah, yes, the man found on San Danson Mountain nearly dead from pneumonia. The struggle had been great, and Sister had visited him several times, until he began to turn around. Then she had moved on to more critical cases. What could this woman in scrubs want with the man?

  The light in the room was dim after the bright corridor. Sister Beatified could just make out the shape of the woman in scrubs leaning over the patient. Sister waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. Then she shuffled toward the bed. It was like running uphill against a stream of icy wind. Sister Beatified persevered. Slowly the woman in scrubs straightened and turned toward Sister. The woman held a syringe, the plunger extended, with a sinister looking yellow fluid in it. Then Sister saw the woman’s foot was on the oxygen tube, pinching it shut. The man in the bed began breathing raggedly.

  “In God’s Name,” Sister said. “Move your foot!” A long moment of struggle ensued. To Sister Beatified it seemed an eternity. Then the cold evil retreated, and the woman in scrubs fled the room. Sister hurried to the bed; the patient was beginning to breathe more easily.

  Sister put her hand on his arm. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. His face was gaunt, but his eyes were clear.

  “Thank you, Sister,” he said, and closed his eyes. Sister Beatified sent silent prayers Godward. She left the room long enough to go to the nurse’s station. She took the phone and dialed for an outside line. Then she dialed the sheriff’s office.

  DiConti Sharif answered. Sister Beatified knew him well.

  “Deputy,” she said, “this is Sister Beatified at Las Tumbas General. I think a woman just tried to murder one of our patients. Perhaps you should come over, and I can tell you all about it.”

  “I’ll be by within the half hour,” DiConti said. “Where shall I meet you?”

  “In Intensive Care. You know where that is?”

  “All too well. Be careful, Sister.”

  “I’m just going to sit and pray with this patient. I will be well.”

  “Be with you soon,” DiConti said, and hung up the phone. Sister Beatified put the receiver on the hook on her end and shuffled back to the threatened patient to keep vigil.

  The Patient

  When DiConti got to the Hospital, Sister Beatified was waiting for him in Haakon’s room.

  “Deputy,” she greeted him, “thank you for coming.” Haakon slept uneasily. His breathing was much clearer than it had been, but he still breathed raspingly.

  “Can you give me a full description of the person you found in here?” DiConti asked.

  Sister Beatified described the intruder’s aura of evil. It was only after her narrative that DiConti remembered Sister Beatified’s worldly eyesight was very dim, while her spiritual or psychic insight was magnificent. He quickly realized she could not give him an adequate description for a police all points bulletin.

  “Do you think this patient is in continued danger?” he asked the Sister.

  “Yes,” she said. “Get him out of here, if you have any place to take him.”

  “I’ll call his doctor,” DiConti said. He went into the corridor and found the nurses’ station. He had the Sheriff’s office patch him through to the radio room, and then asked the operator to call Dr. Field’s frequency. It took a little time to arouse the doctor, but he had left the radio on to be available in case Haakon’s condition worsened significantly.

  “Dr. Field here,” he said when all the electronic connections had been made. Tonight his voice sounded as clearly as a telephone in the next room might have.

  “Dr. Field,” DiConti said, “DiConti Sharif here. The hospital called me in because someone has tried to harm your patient. Sister Beatified…do you know her? Of course, everyone does…found a woman, not one of the nurses, about to inject something into your patient’s IV hookup.”

  “Did she succeed?”

  “No, Sister frightened her off before she accomplished any harm.”

  “How’s Mr. Spitz?”

  “Sleeping, although his breath rattles a little.”

  “Sounds like normal recovery is progressing. Can you stand guard over him until I can get there?”

  “Should I send a helicopter?”

  “No, I’ll borrow a car from La Señora.”

  “Can you suggest a place where Mr. Spitz will be safe while he continues to recuperate?”

  “Let me check. I may have a place he can stay in the Village, or at the Station.”

  “It’s pretty late; will anybody be up?”

  “For this I’ll wake somebody.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” DiConti said. He went back to Haakon’s room. He tried to send Sister Beatified to rest, but she refused.

  “I’ll watch with you,” she said. “You guard his body. I’ll pray for him.” She took a worn rosary from her habit pocket, and began to whisper her beads. The rhythm and peace of the sound relaxed DiConti. He nearly fell asleep thinking of Notta Freed.

  Sister Beatified knew the Doctor had come in before DiConti quite realized it. She rose, stiffly, from the hard chair by Haakon’s bed and spoke softly to the Doctor.

  “The man sleeps comfortably,” she said. “I believe he suffered no harm tonight. He needs to be with people who will love him.” Then she left the room, bent on other hearts to comfort and other hurts to ease.

  Dr. Field went to Haakon’s quiet form. “He’s breathing fairly easily,” he said to DiConti, who stood now by his side.

  “Sister prayed for him,” DiConti said. “While she watched over him.”

  “She’s enough to make an agnostic a believer.” Dr. Field listened to Haakon’s lungs with his stethoscope. “He’s well enough, I think, that we can move him. I’ll take him to the Village. We’ll take care of him there.”

  Dr. Field woke Haakon and swiftly explained to him that he’d be safer at an undisclosed location. DiConti supported Haakon in an upright position, while Dr. Field helped him dress. Then Dr. Field went to the nurses’ station, commandeered a wheel chair, and settled Haakon in it. Dr. Field checked his patient’s vital signs again, and nodded.

  “We can take him out now,” he said. They wheeled him to the elevator, and, on the main floor, made for the service entrance. DiConti brought the police car around, and put Haakon in the passenger’s seat and buckled him in. He put the wheel chair in the trunk.

  “You can follow me,” DiConti said to Dr. Field. “I’ll help you get him settled…where? At the motel?”

  “No, I’ve arranged for Emma Freed, and her daughter Notta, to take him in. He’ll be less visible in the Village.”

  A thrill went through DiConti. He concealed it from Dr. Field; it had more to do with seeing Notta again than with anything Haakon’s condition could prompt. “How will we get him up into the Village?” he asked.

  “Notta can help. She said she will meet us there,” Dr. Field said.

  “Okay,” DiConti said. “Follow me down the River. I’ll wait for you when I get to the Station.”

  “See you there, then.”

  Dr. Field turned and walked across the lot to the physicians’ parking. He did not see a dark figure pass briefly through the bright cone shed from a parking lot light. He got in the touring car he had borrowed from La Señora and left the lot. Vanna watched the cars go from her shadows.

  Dr. Field drove carefully along the River Road to the Station. DiConti’s taillights, ahead of him, disappeared around the first curve. Dr. Field, who drove infrequently, took his time. DiConti, of course, made top speed on the road he drove once a day or more often in his patrols.
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  The Station was dark, except for a dim light burning in front of the garages. DiConti guessed this was where Juan, and maybe Notta, waited for them.

  Beside him, Haakon slept in the passenger seat, not even waking when DiConti turned off the engine and lights. The garage door slid open, revealing a brighter light inside. A figure leaned against a car in the garage. DiConti’s heart sped up; it was surely Notta.

  Dickon Dreams of a Crone

  Dickon was in a forest of dark, forbidding trees. Moonlight scattered the ghastly white of bleached bones wherever a few breaks in the canopy allowed. The moonlight only made the shadows deeper. He was seeking something, some warm, bright, happy thing that had been spirited away by an evil force to purposes nefarious. The world depended on Dickon. Dickon had no sword, neither armor nor spear nor hope. Yet he plodded forward under the dripping trees. Behind him moon-pierced darkness. Before him moon-pierced darkness. On every side clumps of vile-smelling parasitic vegetation dangled from the trees, swaying ghostly gray in the breeze whose breath carried the dead stench of swamps stagnant with rot.

  On his left, a clearing opened. Hard-packed earth shook under the tramping feet of dancing kangaroos. Two frenzied circles faced each other. The outer one stamped a rhythm counter-clockwise; the other made a syncopated counterpoint stamping clockwise. Each beast’s eyes glowed red with an infernal fire. Beams shot from their fiery eyes and died in the bone white moonlight. Frost glittered in the air; steam rose from the stamping kangaroos.

  Slowly