by Paul Boor
It was August and he smelled the meadows, saw the multicolored silks of the riders, their mounts’ manes braided with bright red and yellow ribbons. The comely woman backed away and was swallowed by the trackside crowd.
“The fever . . . it’s not breaking.”
“I’m afraid the damage to the liver has advanced . . .”
A bitter, coppery taste blossomed at the back of his throat. His tongue was thick. His eyes were scorched, his lips split. He was going to die, he knew . . . but how simple a matter that would be, to follow all those who’d gone before to the grave, the icehouse, the anatomy lab. The way had been well marked.
Orderlies slammed shutters against a howling north wind. Nurses rushed to light gas heaters. It was morning again and those who had died in the night cooled on gurneys, awaiting transport to the morgue . . . but Nicolas wasn’t loaded onto a gurney. Clean sheets were pulled under him. Cool hands laid on.
At his bedside, the familiar smell of horses.
“Don’t, Nicolas. Don’t try to talk. It’s Renée. I’ve been at the horse barns, working on more anti-toxoid”—his eyes opened and he saw the ward clearly for the first time in . . . how long? days?—“but now I’m here.”
“I swear I saw the culprit in the next bed, Renée. Trey Sealy. Did he . . . ?”
“He recovered and disappeared, left yesterday. Two doses of anti-toxoid did the trick. The other man—”
“Other—?”
Renée pointed to the gurneys covered by sheets near the window. “That’s him. The large one.”
“My assassin. The Russian.”
“The fever set in quickly. I gave anti-toxoid, but his fever rose and his liver . . . his liver was ruined.”
A second dream, a dream more vivid, more palpable than real life, came to him that night.
He was walking the shoreline trail near the outlet of Upper Spy Lake. It was early winter, peaceful, the smell of balsam in the woods. A thick, wet snow fell. He heard rustling on the trail behind him. A bear burst from the woods, an old, grey beast, snapping its jaws, rolling its shoulders. It was a big male crazed with hunger, laying on fat for the winter, eating everything in sight, its claws scraping along the lonely shoreline trail. Nicolas ran. His lungs were about to burst. The bear was closing in. He smelled its fetid breath. He turned toward the lake.
The ice was thin. He dared not venture out.
90
At Her Merchant's Bedside
She’d had her chance—foolish girl—but hadn’t taken it. Now it was about to end. This fine gentleman, so kind, so clever, lost because of her foolishness. Tears ran; she tasted their salt; she traced their tortured course on her cheeks. If only . . . if only . . .
She’d felt close to him from the first moment of their meeting. It was like she’d always known the man. She should have said things, the right things at the right time. She knew the things to say; she’d had the chance but had not taken it. Foolish girl.
Saratoga . . . that’s when she should have taken him for hers. If she had, they wouldn’t have been at that roulette wheel. They would have been in each other’s arms. But the proper thing, the right thing, was clear—when all the while her heart said yes.
She’d always done the right thing, and what had it brought her? Suffering. Grief. Her beloved husband had died. Her son had died. And now, a new love, a love like she’d never known, would die. For her, it seemed, what was love but a prelude to sorrow?
Nicolas Van Horne. Her Nick. What did right or wrong matter? Nothing mattered now. It was over . . . if only she had . . . if only she had . . .
He was stirring, inflamed with fever, jaundice deepening, bodily fluids leaking away until whatever it is that defines a life would leave; she’d seen it so many times, this feverish tossing while the liver died away bit by bit until finally, the whole body followed. The ghastly work of the killer Mr. Jack.
Even their strongest anti-toxoid hadn’t saved Nick. Her best effort, so paltry, so off the mark. This science she practiced. This medicine. Out loud, she cursed the day those others—“Crude beasts!”—those real killers came to the infirmary door needing her precious anti-toxoid. She cursed the oath she’d taken. To do no harm, to treat men as equals . . . when there was one who had no equal, one she dreamt of with every living breath.
She’d had her chance and hadn’t taken it. Foolish, foolish girl. Now her only task was to make a dying man comfortable. She would move him out of this horrid liver ward. She had already arranged the move to that vacant room on the upper floor. It was small, and unused because of the hurricane damage it took last September. The room needed paint, was under repair, and the balcony off the room was wobbly, but the breeze from the south at the back of the infirmary might prevent Nicolas’s lungs from filling with pneumonia. That was her hope.
And the room would be private; there’d be no one to hear the things she had to tell him.
Nick would be as comfortable as a dying man could be. She would stay by him as a lover, not a physician, and visitors off the street wouldn’t be traipsing up and down the aisles like in the liver ward. She’d allow only his son Schuyler in . . . and perhaps that business associate of Nick’s who’d just arrived by train. A friend, someone who’d worked with Nick on the ice. A big fellow named Smith or Jones or one of those names that were so very common.
During one of Nick’s lucid moments, a visit from a fellow trader might lift his spirits and certainly would do no harm. That was most important. To do no harm.
91
The Bear
Consciousness came in fits and starts. When he managed to open an eye, Nicolas saw a blurry shape looming at his bedside: feminine, the shape was tall and thin like Renée, and then she leaned over him and he saw her dark eyes, the green sparkle.
His mouth was parched, his lips pasted together with his first words. “How . . . long have I been out?”
“Two weeks, a little more since your first treatment.” She moved away, became a shape again, a vague profile with weariness and worry in her voice. “I’ve had you moved to this new room. It was under repair but I’ve sent the workers off for now. You’ll be alone and I’ve assigned the best nurses to you.”
“Did the treatments work?”
“Oh, Nick, it’s difficult to know, though we’re doing everything we can. You’ve gotten four doses of anti-toxoid and I’m still not sure if you’re like this because of yellow fever or the treatment. We’ve discussed your case on rounds and decided for one more dose of anti-toxoid.”
To show him, she lifted a single bottle from the bedside table, which was cluttered with reels of the red tubing, steel trocars for injection, and a small surgical kit. “Your last dose.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Oh, Nick, you fade away for days. I . . . once I thought I lost you . . . I just don’t know. You’re looking a bit stronger today. Perhaps this last dose—”
“Why is this bottle so clear?”
“I’ve purified and filtered it for a week.” Renée began unfurling the red tubing. “Let’s get started.” She opened the surgical kit, rummaged among the tools, and selected a pair of scissors to trim the tubing to the correct length.
Nicolas tried to focus his bleary eyes on her but it seemed like lead was weighing down his eyelids. No matter how he fought to watch her at her work, her shining dark hair, her precise movements, she faded . . .
He’d been out again—it must’ve been only a minute. Renée bent over his arm, about to insert a trocar. Red tubing ran to the bottle hung high above. Then, he sensed a movement in the room, perhaps a gust from the balcony, and heard the door to the corridor click shut.
“Oh!” Renée glanced behind her, trocar in hand. “You must be…Mr….”
Nicolas blinked. An ill-defined, shadowy shape loomed behind Renée. Nicolas shook his head to sharpen it. The shape wouldn’t snap into focus. It was big shouldered . . . hulking. Too large for a man. It’s the bear from the dream! The bear by the lake
!
“I go by Wilson,” the bear shape said. “But real name Russian, pretty lady. I am Zhivakov.” The big Russian grabbed Renée’s arm and jerked her toward him; she gasped. “How nice . . . I find the ice man with lady friend.”
Grabbing the bed frame, Nicolas bolted upright and swung his rubbery legs over the edge of the bed.
“Get away from her—”
“Too bad she here, ice man. Too bad for her. See what I bring for you?” With his free hand Zhivakov reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the two steel bolts. He let one bolt slip, unwinding a length of piano wire, then swung his deadly garrote like a watch on a chain.
Nicolas felt the skin at the back of his neck tighten, a wild pounding in his chest. Where would he get the strength? He hadn’t been on his feet in the last two weeks. The Russian had Renée’s arm clamped like a vise.
“I ride train a long way to get you, ice man.” Zhivakov smirked. “I heard how you ruin my business here. In Boston, too, they find my men and arrest them. Newspapers full of it. Now you going to join your pal the undertaker.” He threw his head back and laughed maniacally. “You’ll be deader than an undertaker. Ha!”
“Let her go. She’s a doctor . . . has nothing to do with this.”
“Lady doctor?” The big Russian frowned.
“Doesn’t know anything about this. Nothing—”
“Yeow!” Zhivakov jumped like he was stung by a bee. “Ow! What in hell?”
Renée’s trocar quivered in the back of his hand. As he pulled it out and threw it across the room, Renée dashed for the door. Zhivakov sprang after her with amazing speed for a big man and caught her in a few steps.
“Suka! Dog! Now you in real trouble.” He growled, twisting Renée’s right arm behind her back.
Zhivakov pushed Renée ahead toward the bed. “You regret that, pretty lady.” As they passed the bedside table, Renée reached out, grabbed it, and pulled herself free of Zhivakov. She fell to the floor; the table toppled, scattering medical paraphernalia over her with a crash.
“Now you two come.” Zhivakov grabbed Nicolas, then reached down for Renée and pushed them both out the balcony door. “Yes. Is perfect. A lover’s leap.”
Nicolas staggered beside him, a rag doll in the big man’s grip.
Rubble from the stalled repairs sat in piles on the balcony. The bricks underfoot had cracked and loosened; the central railing of the stone balustrade leaned drunkenly outward. Zhivakov spun to kick the door shut, then threw Renée against the building. Dazed, she sank onto a pile of broken bricks and mortar dust.
He swung Nicolas around to face him. “Now you going to learn to fly. But before, I tell you what else—after you gone, I go get your pretty daughter, ice man. She’s the one messed my business in Chicago. She join you soon. Ha! You, her, and undertaker, all one big family. Dead family.”
Nicolas felt the boil of anger rise in his blood, hardening the muscles in his arms, steadying his legs. Calm settled over him.
Zhivakov shoved him toward the balustrade. Nicolas forced himself to glare into the big man’s eyes—to keep his glance from straying to Renée, who was creeping up behind the Russian’s broad back, her hand in the pocket of her white coat.
A six-inch-long surgical scalpel flashed in the sun—and came down on Zhivakov’s right shoulder. “There! There!” Renée raised the steel blade again and again, stabbing to the bone.
Zhivakov spun. “Suka ebonya!” he shouted, swatting the scalpel away with his right hand. He balled his left and caught Renée’s jaw with a crunching sound, laying her out on the deck.
The Russian’s back was to him. Nicolas reached for a piece of broken brick. Cold, rough in his hand. He swung. A glancing blow, but blood seeped from the Russian’s scalp. Zhivakov turned, his hand to his bloodied head, his eyes momentarily crossed. “You dead now.”
Crouching, Nicolas backed toward the balustrade. “Come get me, you coward . . . you stinking Russian filthy bastard.” Guessing the distance, Nicolas shifted to the left, using his old football moves.
The big Russian lunged and grabbed on to Nicolas’s flimsy hospital gown. The gown tore. Nicolas ducked lower, let the big man’s momentum carry him forward, toward the rail. He had the Russian’s bloody jacket in his two hands, smelled his stinking breath as he gave a last desperate push. Zhivakov spun around, arms flailing, and went over backward, his eyes rolling up, his mouth a large, round O in the instant before he disappeared through the broken balustrade.
“Ahh!”
Nicolas lay on his stomach, panting. His arms and shoulders hung over the crumbling edge of the balcony. Bricks fell away. He reached back, clutching—no purchase. Rubble, mortar dust.
Then he felt a weight on him, counterbalancing. Renée, her arms wrapped around his knees, inched him back from the precipice.
Nicolas lay still and peered over the edge. Before he shut his eyes and let exhaustion take him into oblivion, he stared down at the bearlike body hung over the hospital’s fence, impaled on wrought iron spikes. He thought he saw a twitch or two before the big bear’s body went still.
92
Visitors
The next time he cracked an eye, the last of a bottleful of clear solution ran into his vein, and Schuyler was at the bedside. The grown man he called “son” wore a fresh shave, a crisply starched shirt and collar, and a lustrous purple chesterfield. His eyes looked bruised by worry, despite the snappy duds and the cigarette dangling from his lip.
“I’m hoping you’ll be fine, Father, and soon. Dr. Renée tells me it was a close call. She refused to lay odds, but . . . she gave you two more treatments—that’s your last running now. And the most amazing thing”—he guffawed—“Dr. Renée found a vein she never knew existed. Some sort of variant of anatomy. She’s going to pen a report to present to a medical society in New York.” He looked off to the busy hospital corridor. “This place isn’t so bad, you know, if you’re not sick.”
Nicolas could only nod.
He slept fitfully during his last treatment and woke chilled to the bone. Another norther howled. Shutters rattled in their stone casings. Gusts blew through the room; an orderly arrived with blankets. Tiny beads of hail clattered against the brick building and skipped from the balcony and through the slats of the shutters and across the windowsills into sculpted piles, like beach sand scattered on the pine floor. Then, a cloth smelling of camphor dampened his face and was draped on his forehead.
“Rest, Nick. That’s your only worry, now that—” Her voice broke. She went on in a whisper. “The look you had at your worst . . . I’ve seen it too many times. But now, it’ll be all right.”
Her cheek was badly bruised, her left eye blackened and swollen nearly shut. Through the camphor and disinfectant, Nicolas imagined he caught an apple blossom scent.
He opened his eyes to bright morning sunshine and the banging of shutters being thrown open. A gaunt, pallid Professor Francis Keiller leaned against the metal head of the bed.
“Aye, Van Horne, looks like you’ve come to. I know you can hear me. I’m pleased to tell you that yer experiment-of-one worked . . . sort of.” Keiller beamed. “That blasted young Sealy, the scoundrel . . . he took one dose and recovered. Well, maybe they’ll catch him. Anyway, we have a better idea about the doses, all thanks to you, good sir.”
Nicolas managed a low whisper. “You can beat yellow fever?”
“Aye, we’ve the knowledge, I’m sayin’, but we’ve not much of a medical college left.” He laughed darkly. “We’ve been abandoned . . . the students . . . researchers . . . half the faculty gone.”
Nicolas sat upright on the edge of the bed. He breathed deeply of the soap and antiseptic on his withered body. “Gone, Francis? All the scientists?”
“Practically all.”
“Fernando, too?”
“Him? He was the first to flee. Like rats off a sinking ship, I tell you. We had six of those masqueraders. Scientists? Bah! Those traitors? I can’t prove it, but I’m convinc
ed they were sent by Toussaint, the sneak thief, not Pasteur.”
“But why, Professor?”
“To steal my ideas, of course.” Keiller shook his head in disgust. “Probably steal the particle itself. And, speaking of rats, I believe you’ve cleaned out a nest of ’em yourself.”
“It was Renée, really.”
“Aye, I’m sure. She’s one lassie who’ll take no guff from any man. And you can rest easy. The law will have all the facts on your little episode. What we’re hearing from up north—that’ll be taken into account, too, if I have anything to say about it.”
Nicolas stepped through to the decrepit balcony, which had become their appointed meeting place. The doctors’ rounds were ending soon; he felt his pulse quicken, waiting in the cool sunshine. When he saw her long white coat sweep into the room from the hospital corridor, her dark, satiny hair swaying, he felt the same catch in his throat he’d felt after they’d dashed the life out of Zhivakov and life flowed into him, knowing that the Russian’s ghastly mark would never again be cut into the flesh of children.
“I see you continue to improve.” Renée smiled and stepped into the sunshine. “You understand, your convalescence will be long.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Nicolas said with a giddy smirk. “I’m glad you’re healing nicely, too, Doctor.”
“A bit of powder goes a long way. Now remember, travel by rail is forbidden, at least for a few weeks.”
“Perhaps longer.” He slid his hands around her waist, pulled her to him, and pushed the balcony door shut behind her. The morning light falling over his shoulder lit her coat, but the shadow of a turret atop the hospital roof shaded her face and he couldn’t read what was there. “Let’s get serious and discuss business, then, shall we?”
“And what business would that be, Mr. Van Horne?” she asked. “Something about ice?”
