Of Time and the River (40 page)

And Luke, muttering respectfully, “Wy-wy-wy, yes, sir, P-p-p-papa, you’re the d-d-doctor,” stopped then, lifted the chair up to the walk, and began to push it toward the house, not, however, without a troubled glance at the old man who was walking slowly and feebly toward the porch steps. And for a moment, Eliza stood surveying them and then turned, to stand looking at her house reflectively before she entered it again, her hands clasped loosely at her waist, her lips pursed in a strong reflective expression in which the whole pride of possession, her living and inseparable unity with this gaunt old house, was powerfully evident.

It was at this moment, while she stood planted there upon the sidewalk looking at the house, that the thing happened. Gant, still moaning feebly to himself, had almost reached the bottom of the steps when suddenly he staggered, a scream of pain and horror was torn from him; in that instant, the walking cane fell with a clatter to the concrete walk, his two great hands went down to his groin in a pitiable clutching gesture and crying out loudly: “O Jesus! Save me! Save me!” he fell to his knees, still clutching at his entrails with his mighty hands.

Even before Eliza got to him her flesh turned goosey at the sight. Blood was pouring from him; the bright arterial blood was already running out upon the concrete walk, the heavy black cloth of Gant’s trousers was already sodden, turning purplish with the blood; the blood streamed through his fingers, covering his great hands. He was bleeding to death through the genital organs.

Eliza rushed toward him at a strong clumsy gait; she tried to lift him; he was too big for her to handle, and she screamed to Luke for help. He came at once, running at top speed across the yard and, scarcely pausing in his stride, he picked up Gant’s great figure in his arms—it felt as light and fleshless as a bundle of dry sticks— and turning to his mother, said curtly:

“Call Helen! Quick! I’ll take him to his room and get his clothes off.”

And holding the old man as if he were a child, he fairly raced up the steps and down the hall, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he went.

Eliza, scarcely conscious of what she did, paused just long enough to pick up Gant’s black felt hat and walking-stick which had fallen to the walk. Then, her face white and set as a block of marble, she rushed up the steps and down the hall toward the telephone. Now that the end had come, after all the years of agony and waiting, the knowledge filled her with an unbelievable, an incredulous horror. In another moment she was talking to her daughter.

“Oh, child, child,” she said in a low tone of utter terror, “come quick! . . . You father’s bleeding to death!”

There was a gasp, a sob of anguish and surprise, half broken in the throat, the receiver was banged on the hook without an answer: within four minutes Helen had arrived, Barton, usually a deliberate and cautious driver, having taken the dangerous hills and curves between at murderous speed.

As she entered the hall, her mother had just finished phoning to McGuire. Without a word of greeting the two women rushed back through the rear hall towards Gant’s room; when they got there Luke had already finished undressing him. Gant lay half propped on pillows, still holding his great hands clutched around his genitals, the sheet beneath him was already soaked with blood, a red wet blot that spread horribly, sickeningly even as they looked. Gant’s cold-grey eyes were bright with terror. As his daughter entered the room, he looked at her with the pitiable entreaty of a child, a look that tore at her heart, that begged her—the only one on earth who could, the only one who through black years of horror actually had—by some miracle of strength and grace to save him. And even as he looked at her with pitiable entreaty, she saw that he was gone, that he was dying, and that he knew it. Cold terror drank her heart; without a word she seized a towel, pulled his great hands away from that fount of jetting blood and covered him. By the time McGuire arrived they had got a fresh sheet under him; but the spreading horror of the great red blot could not be checked, the sheet was soaking in bright blood the moment that they got it down.

McGuire came in and took one look, then turned toward the window, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette. Helen came to him and seized him by his burly arms, unconsciously shaking him in the desperation of her entreaty.

“You’ve got to make it stop,” she said hoarsely. “You’ve got to! You’ve got to!”

He stared at her for a moment, then stuck the cigarette in the corner of his thick lip, and barked coarsely:

“Stop what? What the hell do you think I am—Jehovah?”

“You’ve got to! You’ve got to!” she muttered again, her large gaunt face strained with hysteria—and then, suddenly, abruptly, quietly:

“What’s to be done?”

He did not answer for a moment: he stared out of the window, his coarse, bloated and brutally good face patched and mottled in late western light.

“You’d better wire the others,” he grunted. “That is, if you want them here. Tell Steve and Daisy to come on. They may make it. Where’s Eugene?”

“Boston.”

He shrugged his burly shoulders and said nothing for a moment.

“All right. Tell him to come on.”

“How long?” she whispered.

Again he shrugged his burly shoulders, but made no answer. He lit his cigarette, and turned toward the bed: nothing could be heard except Luke’s heavy and excited breathing. Both towel and sheet were red and wet again. Gant remained motionless, his great hands clasped upon the towel, his eyes bright with terror and pitiable entreaty. McGuire opened his old leather case, squinted at the needle, and loaded it. Then, the cigarette still plastered on his fat lip, coiling smoke, he walked over to the bed and even as Gant raised his fear-bright eyes to him, he took him by his stringy arm, and grunting “All right, W. O.,” he plunged the needle in above the elbow. Gant moaned a little, and relaxed insensibly after the needle had gone in: in a few minutes his eyes grew dull, and his great hands loosened in their clutch.

XXVIII

He bled incredibly. It was unbelievable that an old cancer-riddled spectre of a man should have so much blood in him. One has often heard the phrase “bled white,” and that is literally what happened to him. Some liquid still came from him, but it was almost colourless, like water. There was no more blood left in him. And even then he did not die. Instead, as if to compensate him for all these years of agony and mortal terror, this bitter clutch on life so desperately relinquished, there came now a period of almost total peace and clarity. And Helen, grasping hope fiercely from that unaccustomed tranquillity, tried to hearten him and herself with futile words; she even seized him by his shoulders and shook him a little, saying:

“Why, you’re all right! You’re going to be all right now! The worst is over—you’ll get well now! Don’t you know it?”

And Gant covered her fingers with his own great hand and, smiling a little and shaking his head, looked at her, saying in a low and gentle voice:

“Oh, no, baby. I’m dying. It’s all right now.”

And in her heart she knew at last that she was beaten; yet she would not give up. The final stop of that horrible flow of blood which had continued unabated for a day, the unaccustomed tranquil clarity of Gant’s voice and mind, awakened in her again all the old unreasoning hopefulness of her nature, its desperate refusal to accept the ultimate.

“Oh,” she said that night to Eliza, shaking her head with a strong movement of negation—“you can’t tell me! Papa’s not going to die yet! He’ll pull through this just like he’s pulled through all those other spells. Why, his mind is as clear and sound as a bell! He knows everything that’s going on around him! He hasn’t talked in years as he talked to me tonight—he was more like his old self than he’s been since he took sick.”

“Why, yes,” Eliza answered instantly, eagerly catching up the drift of her daughter’s talk, and pursuing it with the web-like, invincibly optimistic hopefulness of her own nature.

“Why, yes,” she went on, pursing her lips reflectively and speaking in a persuasive manner. “And, see here, now!—Say!—Why, you know, I got to studyin’ it over tonight and it’s just occurred to me—now I’ll tell you what MY theory is! I believe that that old growth— that awful old thing—that—well, I suppose, now, you might say— that CANCER,” she said, making a gesture of explanation with her broad hand—“whatever it is, that awful old thing that has been eating away inside him there for years—” here she pursed her lips powerfully and shook her head in a short convulsive tremor of disgust—“well, now, I give it as my theory that the whole thing tore loose in him yesterday—when he had that attack—and,” she paused deliberately, looked her daughter straight in the eyes, and went on with a slow and telling force—“and that he has simply gone and got that rotten old thing out of his system.”

“Then, you mean—” Helen began eagerly, seizing at this fantastic straw as if it were the rock by which her drowning hope might be saved—“you mean, Mama—”

“Yes, sir!” said Eliza, shaking her head slowly and positively. “That’s exactly what I mean! I think nature has taken its own course—I think nature has succeeded in doing what all the doctors and hospitals in the world were not able to do—for you can rest assured”—and here she paused, looking her daughter gravely in the eyes—“you can rest assured that nature is the best physician in the end! Now, I’ve always said as much, and all the best authorities agree with me. Why, yes, now!—here!—say!—wasn’t I readin’ in the paper—oh! here along, you know a week or so ago— Doctor Royal S. Copeland!—yes, sir!—that was the very feller— why, he said, you know—” she went on in explanatory fashion.

“Oh, but, Mama!” Helen said, desperately, unable to make her mind believe this grotesque reasoning, and yet clutching at every word with a pleading entreaty that begged to be convinced.

“Oh, but, Mama, surely Wade Eliot and all those other men at Hopkins couldn’t have been wrong! Why, Mama,” she cried furiously, yet pleadingly—“you know they couldn’t—after all these years— after taking him there for treatment a dozen times or more! Why, Mama, those men are FAMOUS—the greatest doctors in the world! Oh, surely not! Surely not!” she said desperately, and then gazed at Eliza pleadingly again.

“H’m!” said Eliza, pursing her lips with a little scornful smile. “It won’t be the first time that a doctor has been wrong—I don’t care how famous they may be! You can rest assured of that! It’s always been my opinion that they’re wrong about as often as they’re right—only you can’t prove it on ‘em. They BURY their mistakes.” She was silent a moment, looking at her daughter in a sudden, straight and deadly fashion, with a little smile at the corners of her mouth. “Now, child, I want to tell you something. . . . I want to tell you what I saw today.” Again she was silent, looking straight in her daughter’s eyes, smiling her quiet little smile.

“What? What was it, Mama?” Helen demanded eagerly.

“Did you ever take a good look at that maple tree out front that stands on your right as you come in the house?”

“Why, no,” Helen said in a bewildered tone. “How do you mean?”

“Well,” said Eliza calmly, yet with a certain triumph in her voice, “you just take a good look at it tomorrow. That’s all.”

“But why—I can’t see—how do you mean, Mama?”

“Now, child—” Eliza pursued her subject deliberately, with a ruminant relish of her strong pursed lips—“I was born and brought up in the country—close to the lap of Mother Earth, as the sayin’ goes—and when it comes to TREES—why, I reckon there’s mightly little about ‘em that I don’t know. . . . Now here,” she said abruptly, coming to the centre of her argument—“did you ever see a tree that had a big hollow gash down one side—that looked like it had all been eaten an’ rotted out by some disease that had been destroyin’ it?”

“Why, yes,” Helen said, in a puzzled voice. “But I don’t see yet—”

“Well, child, I’ll tell you, then,” said Eliza, both voice and worn brown eyes united in their portents of a grave and quiet earnestness—“that tree doesn’t ALWAYS die! You’ll see trees that have had that happen to them—and they CURE themselves! You can see where some old rotten growth has eaten into them—and then you can see where the tree has got the best of it—and grown up again— as sound and healthy as it EVER was—around that old rotten growth. And that,” she said triumphantly, “that is just exactly what has happened to that maple in the yard. Oh, you can SEE it!” she cried positively, at the same time making an easy descriptive gesture with her wide hand—“you can see where it has lapped right around that old growth—made a sort of fold, you know—and here it is just as sound and healthy as it ever was!”

“Then you mean?—”

“I mean,” said Eliza in her straight and deadly fashion—“I mean that if a tree can do it, a MAN can do it—and I mean that if any man alive could do it your daddy is that man—for he’s had as much strength and vitality as any man I ever saw—and MORE than a tree!” she cried. “Lord! I’ve seen him do enough to kill a HUNDRED trees—the things HE’S done and managed to get over would kill the strongest tree that ever lived!”

“Oh, but Mama, surely not!” said Helen, laughing, and beginning to pluck at her chin in an abstracted manner, amused and tickled in spite of herself by her mother’s extraordinary reasoning. “You know that a man is not built the same way as a tree!”

“Why,” Eliza cried impatiently, “why not? They’re both Nature’s products, aren’t they? Now, here,” she said persuasively, “just stop and consider the thing for a moment. Just imagine for a moment that YOU’RE the tree.” Here she took her strong worn fingers and traced a line down Helen’s stomach. “Now,” she went on persuasively, “you’ve got some kind of growth inside you—call it what you like—a tumour, a growth, a cancer—anything you will—and your HEALTHY tissues get to work to get the BEST of that growth—to build up a wall around it—to destroy it—to replace it with sound tissues, weed it out! Now,” she said, clenching her fingers in a loose but powerful clasp—“if a TREE can do that, doesn’t it stand to reason that a MAN can do the same? Why, I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment!” she cried powerfully. “Not a bit of it.”

Thus the two women talked together according to the laws of their nature—the one with an invincible and undaunted optimism that persauded itself in the octopal pursuit of its own reasonings, the other clutching like a drowning person at a straw.