by Paul Boor
Nicolas nodded, smiled a thank-you, and tucked the package under his arm.
“Take care, now,” the apothecary said sternly. “As I say, they lie just beneath the surface. Steer clear of them.”
The next day, swaying in his private cabin, Nicolas pulled the new works from its case, prepared an injection, and slipped into a state of blissful white dreams. Hours passed unheeded as the train beat the rails. Nicolas found the Magendie’s solution quite successful at fogging the Galveston memories, both good and bad, the delights and the worries. It was so simple; one needed only choose one’s dosage properly.
As they neared Buffalo, Nicolas decided to venture a second dose. He drew the apothecary’s mix into his new works, gently inserted the needle into his forearm, and . . . blundered into a vein, precisely as the apothecary had warned.
“The gent was right,” he muttered when the brilliant rush of intravenous morphine hit him squarely between the eyes. “They lie . . . just . . . beneath . . . the surface.”
He settled into his cabin’s leather bench and felt with exquisite sensitivity the rhythm of the rushing coach. “Ahh . . . how else can one forget the ghastliness this world brings?”
27
Buffalo
The train was deathly still, the only sound the faint thrum of rain on the Pullman coach’s metal roof. Raw nerves pulsed at Nicolas’s temples. Sudden, unexplained twitches shook his limbs. Something akin to sleep had passed over him since Chicago, but he’d still not climbed into his sleeping berth and now—it was already late morning—he found himself awkwardly draped over the private berth’s bench, its hard oak arm his only pillow.
The Pullman’s radiator gave a tired hiss. The train was shutting down. Snatches of conversation came from the passageway: they were talking about the city of Buffalo; it was unusually warm for this time of year. Also, it seemed the Buffalo-to-Albany train—their connector to the Adirondack Mail Express and home—was delayed to load coal. Nothing serious. They would connect the coaches and depart Buffalo today, but not until well after the supper hour.
Nicolas considered a small, settling dose of his mix of morphine to tide him over until the afternoon. Outside, grey lines of passengers filed down the platform for a stroll through Buffalo. With the coach cooling around him and the throb in his head, Nicolas formed a new resolve. He would pack his new works away and venture into town. That business of the two boys dug from a snowdrift sat uncomfortably at the back of his mind.
Nicolas had never extended the Van Horne & Co. ice trade to the boom city of Buffalo, New York. He had been content to supply local needs in the Mohawk Valley, before venturing far south with ice and corpses. For those Southern journeys Nicolas capitalized on the speed of the newest trains. He had cargo cars hitched to a fast locomotive at the rail spur at Upper Spy Lake and run through Buffalo’s switchyard to Chicago. The load was then transferred to steamers for what the riverboat pilots called a “lightning run” down the Mississippi.
On this last run, to Galveston, there’d been less than an hour’s stop in the Buffalo switchyard, barely enough time for Nicolas to retrieve those two boys found in a snowdrift from the medical college. How odd, Nicolas thought as he stepped from his Pullman coach, tightened down his homburg against the cold rain, and pulled his overcoat around his ears. How odd to receive two corpses from a medical man, rather than the other way around.
Thomas Chubb. That’s who this all came back to. Thomas Chubb had informed Nicolas of two easy bodies in Buffalo just minutes before departing the lake with the ice. Thomas was always last-minute. And he’d been tight-lipped about the professor, Austin Flynt, who was “in a hurry to be rid of the boys.” Few words had passed between Professor Austin Flynt and Nicolas at the transfer in Buffalo; Nicolas had Adam whisk the dead boys from the medical school and stow them in the bottom layer of Van Horne ice without even examining the bodies. Now, thanks to their locomotive’s appetite for coal, Nicolas found himself with a small window of time to find this Professor Flynt again and discover what he knew.
New York State’s medical college at Buffalo occupied a substantial brown stone building at the corner of Main and Virginia Streets. One of New York’s first, the college was compact and plain compared to Galveston’s new school. The building was topped by simple steeples and adorned only with churchy, peaked windows. A steepled entryway enclosed stone steps where one kicked the snow and ice from one’s boots, though on this afternoon the steady drumbeat of rain had turned the scanty snowdrifts to slush, and there was no snow or ice to kick off one’s boots.
The main door of the college creaked open with difficulty. The hallway floor was darkened and rutted with wear. Nicolas made his way down the empty hall to dry himself at the fireplace in the college’s large central vestibule. He shook the rain from his homburg and overcoat, backed close to the fire, and examined the doors facing the vestibule, each marked with a professor’s name. Austin Flynt, MD. He’d entered that door a little over a week before. His knock was quickly answered by a bright “Do come in!”
Professor Flynt was at his desk, writing in a ledger. He was a large, middle-aged man with a nearly bald crown, a well-trimmed goatee, and a broad, single eyebrow whose great weight beneath the glossy dome of his head gave the immediate impression of intelligence and wit. He appeared quite hale, with clear grey eyes and rosy, weathered cheeks. A look of recognition crossed his face when he glanced up from his oak desk and saw Nicolas; then his mouth set hard with obvious displeasure.
“Mr. Van Horne,” he said without rising, his voice deep and full of gravel. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
“I wish a word with you, Professor.” Flynt’s expansive brow arched, and his eyes widened. “It concerns our previous transaction.”
“Why would you want to dredge up that distasteful business?”
“I’ve been perplexed, sir, as to why a medical professor would rid himself of these two unfortunate boys. I expect your own students could’ve used ’em.”
Flynt sat back in his chair and, with a sigh, pushed away from his desk, pen still in hand. He was dressed as were all these academics—in a drab wool suit kept too long from cleaning or refurbishment. Holes at the elbow were left unpatched. A dingy cravat was knotted sloppily around a collar that had long since lost its stiffness. Boots as dry and wrinkled as any formaldehyde-soaked cadaver poked from under his desk.
“You’re inquisitive, Mr. Van Horne—more so than the run-of-the-mill body snatchers we’ve dealt with. And you’re correct; I would’ve gladly kept the bodies for our anatomy course, but for the special circumstances.”
“What circumstances would those be?” Nicolas asked, stepping further into his office in his hope to push Flynt to the point.
“Well, Thomas Chubb gave specific instructions to transfer the bodies to you. In a rush, as usual. A big rush. Thomas had the boys dropped here only a matter of hours before your train’s arrival.”
“Where did the boys come from?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
“I thought they were found in a snowdrift.”
“Most likely, yes. They were frozen solid.”
“The boys’ bodies just mysteriously arrived at your doorstep?”
“The snowdrift made a good story. Only Thomas could tell you the full details.”
“I suppose I shall ask him then.”
“Look, Mr. Van Horne,” Flynt said, clearly agitated, “I’m an assistant professor, charged with anatomic acquisitions, and my superiors make it clear every day that I’ll remain in this lowly rank forever. I’ve known Thomas Chubb for years, ever since he was first in Buffalo, and Chubb’s always made it worth my while to handle an occasional problem like these boys.”
“You’ve done this before, then?”
Flynt squirmed in his chair before answering. He tossed the pen he still held on his desk. Nicolas thought about Thomas Chubb for a moment and realized that if this professor felt well compensated, Thomas was likely bette
r compensated. The village undertaker was a shrewd one when it came to calculating shares and profits.
Flynt continued, refusing to meet Nicolas’s eyes. “I admit I’ve helped Thomas with disposal for years now. Mostly boys, an occasional girl.”
“Girls as well?”
“Young whores, I’ve always assumed, got on the wrong side of someone. These disposals are not upper-crust, Mr. Van Horne. Quite the opposite.”
“Whores or lost youths, Professor, they’re still living, breathing beings.”
Flynt scowled. “Don’t lecture me, Van Horne. I was a field surgeon at Bull Run, fresh out of medical training. I saw the value of this human life you speak of, and it doesn’t count for much.”
Flynt settled his elbows on his desk with a sigh and continued more slowly.
“No, honestly, I don’t know where Thomas comes by them,” he said. “That’s how Thomas wants it. One observation I’ve made, though, suggests some connection. Most of these ragamuffins have a burn mark. A cypher. Perhaps it’s some secret Masonic thing or other.”
“Can you draw one for me?”
Flynt reached across his desk for a scrap of paper and penciled a figure. As he sketched, he said, “Looks to me like an insect. Hardly noticeable, except under close observation.”
Nicolas studied the scrap. He did not need to search his memory hard to know where he’d seen it.
Ж
His hands trembled. He folded the paper and thrust it into his inner jacket pocket.
“Tell me, Dr. Flynt—have there been others you know of in my ice excursions . . . before these two boys, I mean?”
“You didn’t know? A half dozen, perhaps a few more these past two winters. Before then I was asked to sink the boys in the lake. Weighed down with rocks . . . or concrete boots, you know?”
“What?” Nicolas was aghast. “You threw bodies in the lake? But why?”
“Oh, back then Thomas gave specific instructions for what he called his ‘special disposals.’ I’ve no idea why he started taking them to store in an icehouse somewhere upstate—your icehouse, I presume—instead of my more permanent means of disposal. Thomas has his reasons, I’m sure.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Nicolas went on. “Professor, I’m still not clear on this. My original question remains unanswered. Why didn’t you put these two special disposals, as you call them, into your vats?”
“That’s obvious, isn’t it? If someone here at the college should recognize one of these bodies, and the law should get involved . . . well, that would be it for me. As the low man here, I’d take the blame and end up jailed, or worse. Maybe hanged. They’ll hang you in a minute in Erie County.”
Flynt saw the baffled look on Nicolas’s face and raised his broad brow in surprise.
“Come now, Van Horne. These children aren’t like other poor souls who come our way.”
“What . . . what can you possibly mean?”
“Those two boys were murdered, Van Horne.”
Nicolas swallowed hard. “Murdered?”
“Garroted. Quite expertly, too. Strangled to death. The ligature marks were faint but definitive, as they’ve been on most of these young bodies.” Flynt leveled his pale eyes at Nicolas. “Yes, Van Horne, you’ve had murdered children in your ice. I presumed you knew.” Suddenly shaken, Flynt stood. “I think I’ve said enough.”
“I . . . I can’t fathom . . . but I appreciate your frankness, Professor.”
Flynt leaned on his desk without offering his hand. “I must say, Van Horne, you seem a cultured gentleman. I trust that all this will remain between the two of us? That includes Thomas—I’d hate to cross the man.”
“I’ll try, but I’m not so sure,” Nicolas replied, perplexed. “Everything is confidential in this miserable business I’ve forged, but someday, sooner or later, I’m afraid it will all see the light of day.”
28
Icy Return
At half past three in the morning the Adirondack Mail Express, scheduled for a midnight arrival, wheezed to a stop at the Forestport station. Freezing rain had drizzled through the night onto the wooden platform; ice an inch thick shone like glass underfoot. Lightning scored the sky. Men went tumbling, baggage splayed across the platform; women refused to climb down from their cars. The stationmaster himself took a tumble at the mail car, cursing, “Ga-dang it!” when his elbow struck with a crack and the mailbag disgorged onto the icy planks.
Nicolas and Adam inched their trunks across the sheet of ice to the depot door. Inside the waiting room, with their backs to the potbelly stove, the fine scale of frozen rain on the men’s overcoats quickly turned to steam.
“Not a pretty welcome for us, eh, boss?”
“The mercury can’t be thirty degrees. The lake’ll be soft.”
“I hate to say it, boss, but the gents I’ve been associating with in the dining car say it’s the most awful warm spell they’ve seen. This one fella claimed the ice is already out at Otter Lake. Big Tupper, too. Let’s hope it ain’t gone out at Upper Spy.”
At the mention of bad ice, Nicolas’s guts tightened like the coils of a python. Nausea rose in his craw. The tinkling of bells sounded in his ears. It had to be the morphine, at least in part, but more important, there was an ice harvest to finish, an icehouse to fill.
The depot’s door was thrown open and a coltish, sandy-haired young woman in a red plaid hunting jacket strode out of the drizzle. “Father!” she cried, throwing herself at Van Horne.
“Abby, sweet Abby.” Nicolas sighed. He opened his arms wide and spun her around. “Oh, my baby girl.” He tugged her to him, all dripping woolens and sodden deerskin mittens. “I’ve missed you more than anything.”
Abigail Van Horne was her father’s favorite, the little North Country girl who’d chased after him from her first awkward steps across the kitchen floor. She’d trailed him into the woods, clung to his coattails while he stood at the bar over a whiskey, and skidded behind him onto the ice of Upper Spy Lake.
“Seeing you, my dear, it’s good to be home.”
Nicolas felt his chest flutter and his eyes fill with tears; the serpent in his belly loosened its grip ever so slightly as the girl’s arms, strong as any man’s, wrapped around his neck and Abigail pulled herself up to deliver an enthusiastic kiss.
“Well, Lordy, Lordy,” Adam said, looking on. When Abigail released her father, and Nicolas stepped back to the platform to see to the trunks, Adam grasped the comely eighteen-year-old by the shoulders. “Abigail, girl—you get prettier and prettier every time I set eyes on you. It’s only been three weeks, and look at you. All you need’s a bit more meat on your bones.”
“Oh, Adam, you rogue,” she laughed, stretching to kiss his cheek. “Why don’t you fetch the wagon round front, mister. I brought the buckboard.”
“Not enough snow for the sleigh, eh, Abby girl?”
With a sidewise glance to see that her father was out of earshot, Abigail leaned close and whispered, “Haven’t had snow in weeks, Adam. It barely freezes at night.”
Van Horne’s right-hand man pushed back with a nod and stepped out into the weather.
“So, Father,” Abigail said, again approaching Nicolas. “Deliveries went well?”
“We were on time in Chicago. Lost very little ice in the transfer.”
“And the riverboats?”
“Shipped out well, and we were blessed with extremely skilled river pilots. Made delivery in Saint Louis and New Orleans ahead of schedule, then on to the new port in Texas.”
“A profitable voyage, then.”
“But how’s the ice at Upper Spy, Abby? We’ve heard talk.”
“I’ve been dreading telling you, Father, but right after you left the weather turned, the lake softened . . . and we’ve harvested nothing.”
Nicolas staggered back; it was the thing he most dreaded. “Not a single cake of ice?”
“At camp there was nothing but drinking and pitch playing. A couple of fights among the Lynch broth
ers, no injuries. I released the crew back to the village days ago.”
“Damn! This is my worst nightmare.”
“And Mr. Chubb the undertaker stopped by the house fretting about the lack of ice.”
Nicolas was quiet for a moment. He’d kept his trafficking in bodies a secret from Abigail, though he suspected she knew more than she let on. Indeed, he guessed most of the town surmised there was more to the Van Horne business than simple ice.
“What did Thomas have to say?” Nicolas asked.
“I didn’t speak with him. He came by and bothered Mother. She said he was concerned there wouldn’t be enough ice for ‘his end’ of your enterprise, and you’d know what he meant.”
Nicolas nodded. In the Van Horne icehouse, he’d long ago declared certain rooms off-limits for everyone but him and Adam. Even as a child, Abigail must’ve known that the transactions in these ice rooms were different; her father only entered them late at night or in early morning, often with Thomas Chubb, who, for a so-called “family friend,” rarely set foot inside the Van Horne household.
Abigail knew these things growing up, and what little girl wouldn’t sneak a peek into a forbidden room, even one filled with ice? Perhaps, too, Abigail realized that the folks in Forestport treated her differently. Since she was a teenager, her best friends had always been the newcomers to town—those who hadn’t yet heard the rumors.
“How’s your mother’s health faring?” Nicolas asked.
“The same as ever,” Abigail said with a scowl and a dismissive wave. “She never leaves the house except to visit that quack Valdis.”
“I’ve begged her about this. I’ve begged. Damned charlatan . . .”
Nicolas’s spirits sagged further. He linked arms with Abigail and leaned into her as they stepped out of the station and into the freezing drizzle.
