The Totem 1979 (3 page)

“Maybe. But I hardly think it’s likely,” Bodine said.

“I don’t think so, either. What about the truck? Can we get this in there?” the old man asked.

“That’s no problem. We’ll rig a line.”

So they climbed up from the ditch, the old man breathing hard, and Bodine got a rope and tied it around the head of the carcass and hitched the rope to the truck and used the truck to drag the steer up onto the level. Then he opened the back and pulled out a ramp and this time hitched the rope around the motorcycle. His boy was working with the bike while Bodine pulled and guided on the rope, and slowly, motorcycle revving hard, the steer was dragged up onto the ramp and then pulled into the back. They stood and frowned at the carcass.

“Well, the guts stayed pretty much the same,” the old man said, and Bodine flashed the light around to see if any had been left behind.

The old man walked back toward the gully. “Nothing down there either. But the swath the steer made sure played hell on any tracks.”

Bodine turned and studied the old man. “There’s one other thing I’d like to show you.” He walked toward the woods, the flashlight in his hand, its wide beam sweeping through the trees.

They came to where the stream flowed through the trees, and found a narrow spot to step across and walked up onto the gametrail. Bodine led the way about a hundred yards, then stopped to let the old man come up close to him. He shone the flashlight in among the trees.

The carcass of a deer.

“All right. So what’s the point?” the old man asked.

“Well, I saw a lot of these when I came through here just before I saw the steer. I figured, what the hell, the winter was a bad one. Then I didn’t know. I came back up and checked on this one.” Bodine poked with a stick where he had pushed the carcass from between the trees. “There. See where all the stomach skin’s been eaten. Otherwise it isn’t touched.”

“But it’s been dead for several months. Hell, anything could have caused that. Maybe insects.”

“Even so.”

The old man looked at Bodine and wondered what he must be thinking.

Chapter Five.

The old man drove while Bodine followed in the truck. The boy stayed back at home. They raided across the grate and then turned right and headed toward town. It was after midnight, the car and truck the only traffic on the road. All around, the countryside was dark, no lights on in ranches, the stars clear, a few clouds across the moon. Isolated trees were black against the murky gray of night. The old man heard a coyote howling in the hills.

He was tired. This was late for him, and he was worn out from climbing into the ditch, then walking through the woods. He was feeling sick again as well, the good meal he had eaten now gone bad on him and rising in his stomach. He could taste the undigested pork. What did he expect? He knew he shouldn’t eat so large a meal and one that was so heavy. But then he had been hungrier than was common for him, and besides his wife had gone to so much trouble that he couldn’t very well refuse.

Now he paid. He squirmed in his seat, wishing he would throw up and be done with it. His foot was heavy on the pedal, not because he wanted to get quickly into town, but he was so tired now that he could hardly move his feet. They were like a separate part of him. He felt that they were swollen. Water filling up, he thought. He’d have to take another pill for that.

He suffered, glancing at the darkened country as the car sped down the road. One curve, then another, and he almost missed the third. Better take things easy, better get control, he told himself, and gripped the wheel more tightly, tensing muscles in his leg to get life in his foot. He glanced at Bodine’s headlights in his rearview mirror. He looked ahead and saw a car approach him, its headlights growing larger as it neared. He glanced away as it flashed past, the headlights hurting his eyes, and then the car was gone, and he was staring at his own lights and the dark. Up ahead the carcass of a badger had been flattened on the road. At least he thought it was a badger. He had only one quick look before he was upon it and had passed. He thought about it and then had to concentrate on going around another curve. He shook his head to clear it and then squinted down the headlight-flooded road.

Twenty miles. In terms of effort, they felt more like eighty. He was thinking he was getting closer, thinking of his bed. He blinked his eyes to clear them now, staring down the road. And then he saw the first light in a house, another one closeby, and he was at the outskirts, coming around another bend and starting down the hill, and there the town was spread out wide before him, its streetlights sending up a glow that in the cool of night was like a yellow mist. Traffic lights and lights on in some houses, lights on in the diner and the first bar that he passed and then the all-night service station. After staying up so late, climbing in that ditch, walking through those woods, after this long drive, tired as he was, the warmth of all these lights, he felt that he was home.

The town was Potter’s Field, so-called not because of any graveyard that was near it, although there were a lot of those from the old days. Farmers passing through. Trappers, ranchers, sheepmen, range wars. And the miners. At one time the hills around had all been rich with gold. But that was ninety years ago, and the gold had soon been gone. There had been two towns back then, one high in the hills that they’d called Motherlode, the other down here where the miners came from work to get supplies and drink and rest and often die. Like the farmers, trappers, ranchers, and the sheepmen. All passed on and laid to rest in graveyards that were like a page from history.

The town up there had long since gone to ruin, but the one down here had grown and prospered, twenty thousand people in it now and growing bigger, better, all the time. There were rumors about oil, ski resorts, and breweries, but the main trade here was cattle, and a lot of people didn’t want those other things. The town was in a rich wide valley, mountains all around it, and the first man who’d come through here, back in 1850, was named Potter. He had been a farmer, and he’d liked the country so much that he’d tried to work it. But the soil was wrong for farming, and at last he’d given up, staying on nonetheless, hunting, fishing, living out his days here just because he liked the place. His shack had been rebuilt several times since then, set apart beside the courthouse with a plaque explaining who Potter had been and telling all about his field.

The field was where he’d tried to farm, about the size of what was now the city limits. The town was built exactly where he’d lived. It was the property he’d still retained after all the farmers and the cattlemen had come through here and bought up any land he’d sell them. At first he didn’t want to sell, but Potter had anticipated what was coming, and he didn’t see much point in holding out. Either he would sell or else they’d take it, and so he’d sold and seen the farmers leave, the ranchers stay, had seen the cattle business grow around him. Then he had a store, and then a bar, a hotel and a restaurant, and soon the town was on its way.

Still Potter had tried a bit of farming, marking off a plot of ground beside his shack which he refused to leave and where he died, growing corn and lettuce and potatoes. The ranchers thought him funny, but he prospered, and he still was going out to plant his corn the day he died that spring in 1890. So the field was both the city limits and that plot of ground he tended, the latter set aside behind the shack, a little park and flower garden.

potter’s field. a place where you can grow. So the sign said as the old man passed it, heading down the hill and driving farther into town. Below him, he could see the main street cutting through from right to left, one long row of double-story buildings, feed stores, hardware stores, bars and shops and restaurants, a movie theater, the police station, and the courthouse. The last two were beside each other, surrounded by great elms, sent in from the east donated by a rancher. Indeed the other trees through town were all sent in from other places too, maple, ash and oak, a dozen others, the color of their leaves in autumn stark against the fir green of the mountains.

Down the hill now, farther into town, he reached the stoplight where the two main roads intersected, waiting until the red changed to green and angling right, driving down two blocks and turning left to pull in at the wide two-story building made of cinder blocks and painted white that was his office. Not just his, but everybody’s. Every vet in town. There were eight of them, and they had long ago decided that instead of each one having a separate office it was better, at least cheaper, more efficient, if they all combined to build a place that would be better equipped than each could ever manage alone. In addition to the offices, there were operating rooms, a storehouse, and a kennel. It had been expensive, but the ranchers out here paid to keep their livestock healthy, and besides there hadn’t been much choice. To operate on bulls and stallions, you just had to have the space.

Headlights arcing, the old man went down the driveway toward the back, stopping by the double doors that led in to one operating room. The parking lot was walled with concrete, and he sat there, cut his motor and his lights, waiting in the dark, flexing his hands and kneading his legs to get more life back into them. He wondered how long it would be before he got to bed. He’d never felt so tired.

Then he heard the motor, saw the headlights flashing up the drive, and stepped from the car as Bodine’s truck pulled into view. The old man lost his balance, put his hands against the car, then waited, took his keys, and opened the double doors. He went inside and switched on all the lights. The room was suddenly like day, brighter, like the starkest hottest day he’d ever seen, fierce overhead lights stabbing down at him. He had to turn away, barely glancing at the long wide metal table in the middle, at the white walls and the cabinets and rows of medical supplies. He sought out comfort in the darkness, waiting for Bodine to back the truck up to the entrance. Bodine came up almost into the room, then shut off his lights and motor, and stepped down onto the concrete parking lot.

The old man didn’t move.

“What is it? Something wrong?” Bodine asked.

The old man shook his head. “You’ll have to help me.”

Bodine nodded, walking past him toward the glare that spilled from the entrance to the room. He’d helped with this before, heading toward the pulley that was on a bar up on the ceiling, grabbing at the straps that hung down from it, tugging at them so the pulley rolled along the bar up there and stopped above the back bin of the truck. He climbed up into the back and hitched the straps around the midriff of the carcass, just inside the legs. It was heavy work. Even though the steer was not full-sized, he still had lots of trouble heaving at its bulk so he could slip the straps beneath and slide them into position. Once the stench of all those open guts, left out in the sun all day, became too much for him, and he was forced to turn away. Then he had the straps in place, and he secured them, pulling downward on the chain to work the pulley until the steer was slowly rising, its hoofs dangling above the floor of the truck. A hunk of guts dropped out and plopped near Bodine. He didn’t even look at them, just climbed down from the truck, tugging at the straps to slide the carcass from the truck, across the room and then above the table. Another hunk of guts dropped. He grabbed the chain and yanked down on it in the opposite direction, the pulley in reverse so the steer was slowly settling onto the table. Next Bodine slid the straps from beneath it, heaving at the carcass, and he moved the pulley toward the entrance to the room.

The old man was inside, his hand above his eyes to shield them from the light.

‘You’re sure that you’re okay?” Bodine asked.

“I’m fine.”

“All right then. Guess it’s up to you now. What about those guts that fell?”

The old man looked around. “Take these forceps and that plastic bag. Put them in it.”

Bodine did what he was told. He set the bag on the table. “How soon till I hear?”

“I don’t know yet. I can’t tell yet what I’m looking for. Tomorrow afternoon.”

Bodine nodded, walking toward the truck. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Yes, I know you will.”

Chapter Six.

Then, truck gone, it was quiet. No, the lights up in the ceiling made a buzz. Funny how he’d never noticed that before. But then he hadn’t been here this late in some while. In the daytime, there were always sounds and people. He just wasn’t used to being here alone.

The old man kept his hand near his eyes to shield them from the light, staring at the carcass on the table. What to do? What he’d said was true. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He needed rest, a chance to think and sleep. He needed to sit. And then he realized. He hadn’t even thought to ask Bodine to help him slide the carcass into the cooler. He didn’t have the strength to do it on his own. He could put the bag of guts in there. But not the carcass. It would simply be too much for him. He wondered what to do.

The phone rang. He almost didn’t answer. But he thought about it, and he guessed it would be his wife, and so he walked with effort toward the door that led down to his office, reaching for the phone beside the counter by the door.

“Doctor Markle here… . Hi. How are you? … I’m just about to leave. … I don’t know yet. Something got a steer… . We’re not sure. We brought the carcass in to see. Listen, don’t wait up. I might be half an hour or so. Go to bed. I’ll tell you all about it in a while… . No, I won’t be long. I promise… . Right. Goodbye.”

And he hung up. She’d told him that she loved him, and he’d smiled. With his hand above his eyes again, he turned to face the carcass, and he realized that he had lied. He would not go home directly. He would stay and work a little on the steer. Either that or let it stay out all night decomposing more until he couldn’t do the proper tests. A few slides for the microscope. Maybe take a portion of the brain and cool it for tomorrow. Test the feces. Take a sample of the blood, the little that there was and in such poor condition. He winced from the sickness in his stomach, and he almost changed his mind. Then he braced himself. Nothing for it but to go ahead. His legs heavy, he went over to the sink and washed his hands and put on rubber gloves, a gown and face mask, out of habit really, and to keep his clothes clean, and to bear the stench. He didn’t think his samples would be clean. All the same he liked to do things right and not contaminate anything.