Thoreau at Devil's Perch (28 page)

 

I
t seems I have managed to offend two men this afternoon. I am sorry for that, but if either of them had truly listened to me, none of us would be so distressed now.

And to think it all started with such good news from Adam. He found me in the garden and told me that he had examined Molly and found her to be free of Peck's dreadful affliction.

“Now she can get on with her life as before,” I said.“Unless, that is, her father holds her unfortunate indiscretion against her, as men are wont to do. Molly might have behaved with naïve imprudence, but it was Peck's behavior that was deplorable beyond measure. Mr. Munger should blame him alone.”

“I believe he does,” Adam said.

“Did he tell you so?”

“Not in so many words.” He turned his gaze from mine.

“Are you keeping something from me, Adam?”

“Why would you think it?” he said, still avoiding my eyes.

“Because you are always keeping things from me.”

“Only to shield you from the unsavory side of life. Other than that, I am most open with you.”

“You are not,” I insisted. “You shield your deepest feelings from me too.”

“How can you say that? Did you not receive my letter from Boston?”

“Oh, yes. And I have read it so many times that I can recite it verbatim.Yet I still do not understand why you wrote to me in such a manner.”

“I suppose I did not understand myself at the time. But now I do.” Adam hesitated. “Will you allow me to speak frankly to you, Julia?”

“It is what I most wish you to do!”

He took my hand and led me to the little stone bench behind the tall phlox. There we sat in silence for a while, breathing in the scent of mint and lavender wafting in the light breeze, until he spoke again.

“Here is what I now know to be true, Julia. You are absolutely necessary to my happiness, and a separate existence from you would not be worth living. I realized this as I awaited my death in the cellar.”

“Do not remind me how close I came to losing you!” I said as tears sprang to my eyes.

Adam took me in his arms to comfort me. I relaxed in his embrace, and he began to kiss my cheeks and temples and throat. I soaked up his kisses like a thirsty flower and could not make myself tell him to stop. But he suddenly released me and rose from the bench.

“You should have announced your presence, sir,” he said.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Lyman Upson standing behind the row of swaying phlox, ashen-faced as he stared at us. “I could not announce my presence,” he replied, “for I was struck speechless by such blatant impropriety.”

“Leave immediately,” Adam commanded. “You have no business here.”

“I was under the assumption I had an appointment with Miss Bell today,” Lyman said without looking at me. “But now I will gladly leave her to you, sir.” And with that he abruptly turned his back to us and marched rigidly to the gate. The latch caught when he tried to open it so he kicked the gate open instead, leaving it swinging forlornly on a broken hinge in the wake of his departure.

Adam started to go after him, but I quickly rose from the bench and took hold of his arm to stop him. “Let the poor man go,” I said. “He has reason to be upset. I forgot he was coming today for my answer.”

Adam frowned at me most ferociously. “Your answer to
what?
”

“His marriage proposal. Of course I had no intention of accepting his offer, but—”

“Upson proposed marriage to you? When and where?”

“Wednesday last on Devil's Perch. He seems to have a great affinity for that place. I refused him right off, but he insisted that I take some time to reconsider and—”

Adam interrupted me again. “And you obliged him.”

“Well, yes. That is, no. I mean, I did not reconsider his offer for even a moment, but I did consent to allow him to make it one final time for the sake of his pride.”

“Hah! So much for his pride. What could be more mortifying than to find the woman he hoped to marry being kissed by another man?”

“You are not
another
man, Adam. You are the only one in my life. I have always loved you.”

“Yet you have been considering marriage to another.”

“I have not considered it! How many times must I tell you?”

“Once would have been sufficient,” he replied coldly. “But you had no intention of ever telling me of Upson's proposal, did you?”

“In truth I did not.”

“I cannot help but wonder what other secrets you have held back from me, Julia.”

“Are you implying that I have been deceitful?” I asked him in horror.

Without answering me, he left the garden and strode off down the road. It is now suppertime, and he has not yet returned. Most likely he went to the Tuttle farm to be fed and fawned over by Granny and little Harriet.

I imagine the cozy trio round the big kitchen table heaped high with food, Granny and Harriet beaming with delight at Adam. And then I imagine one, two, three little beings more round the table, all with Adam's dear blue eyes and Harriet's curly hair. Such a wholesome family. Such a happy picture.

I blink it away. I want Adam to be mine, not Harriet's. Even during all those years apart, he filled my heart so completely that there was no room left in it for another. Yet the image of Adam I carried with me for the last ten years was that of a boy, not a man. It is only now that I know him full-grown that I want him most carnally and selfishly. Oh, Julia, you poor miserable creature! Do not impose your wanton desires upon that pretty picture of domestic bliss in Granny's kitchen. It is all for the best that Adam has gone off in a sulk. March away from me, my beloved cousin. And do not look back.

Tuesday, August 25th

 

S
ultan has struck again. Young Hiram discovered the battered body when he went out to the barn at sunrise to milk the cows. He immediately rode to town to notify me and went on to alert Constable Beers.

Drove to the Herd farm, went straight to the barn, and found the peddler Pilgrim's body lying outside the bull pen. The elder Herd was standing over it.

“He was dead when Hiram and me dragged him out,” Herd informed me.

“Was his skin cold to the touch?”

“Didn't want to touch him, doctor. Just pulled him by his boots.”

“Were his limbs stiff as you dragged him?”

“Can't say I noticed. Could barely look at him, being he was so bloodied and stomped.”

“Was the blood dry on him? I am trying to ascertain time of death.”

“Dry. And Sultan was calm as a millpond over in his favorite corner by the window. So it weren't like he just done it. When he gets riled up he rolls his eyes, shakes that big head of his, and drools.” Herd shook his own big head in bewilderment. “Why in tarnation did Pilgrim go into Sultan's pen? Never would have tolerated him sleeping in my barn iffen I'd known he was that crazy.”

I crouched over the mangled corpse, which gave off a strong smell of whiskey. The head was severely smashed up. The jaw, hands, and arms had begun to show signs of rigor mortis. So death had occurred late last night. Had difficulty removing the clothes. A dead body often seems quite reluctant to surrender its modesty. Observed the neck vertebrae had been fractured in two places. The right arm was wrenched from its socket, three ribs broken on the left and two on the right side, the pelvis shattered, and the left femur had suffered two separate fractures. Noted multiple and deep puncture wounds to the chest and abdomen similar to those the pig had endured. Attributed these to the bull's horns.

“Be it pig or man, Sultan don't like company,” Herd remarked unnecessarily.

I looked over at the beast standing by his water trough, nose dripping, eyes glaring balefully at us. “That animal is a killer, Mr. Herd.”

“Well, I ain't accountable for his actions.”

“Of course you are. It is your bull. And you allowed Pilgrim to sleep in your barn.”

“I never allowed no such a thing! Just never stopped him from doing so. Can't stop rats comin' in here, neither.”

“A human being lies here, Mr. Herd. Show him some respect.”

Instead he stomped out of the barn, leaving me alone with the bull and its victim until the younger Herd came back with Constable Beers. Soon the Coroner's Jury assembled in the barn, led by Coroner Daggett, but controlled by Justice Phyfe. After Hiram was questioned in a cursory manner about discovering the body, he was allowed to get on with his milking. I reported the injuries I had observed on poor Pilgrim's mauled body, and we all went over to Sultan's pen to examine the scene of the crime. The bull paid us no mind. There was blood on his hooves and spattered all over the hay.

Justice Phyfe pointed to a half-empty whiskey bottle lying on its side in the corner. He ventured that Pilgrim must have accidentally dropped it through the boards and then, with a drunkard's temerity, gone into the pen to retrieve it. I remarked that it was odd the bull had not shattered the bottle along with Pilgrim's body during his rampage.

Coroner Daggett reminded me that my only role was to give medical testimony, not to attempt to complicate the investigation as I had with the Negro. But he took up a hay rake, gingerly poked it through the boards, and retrieved the bottle as evidence. A pocketknife was revealed in the displaced straw, and he raked that out too. It was passed from one man to another. Its ivory handle was engraved with the graceful image of a leaping trout. We all agreed it was a fine-looking piece, most likely the only thing of value the tramp owned, and it was suggested that his pocketknife should be buried with him.

The undertaker, Mr. Jackson, then inquired as to whom was going to assume the cost of the burial. Pilgrim had no kin that anyone knew of. No one even knew his true name. I volunteered to go ask Farmer Herd if he would pay for it, being of the strong opinion that he should.

Walked over to the little farmhouse beyond the big barn. The kitchen door was open. I knocked on the jamb, and Mrs. Herd looked up from the mound of dough she was kneading on the table and invited me in. She asked if my grandfather was still keeled up with his broken leg, and I told her he was much improved and moving about now. She said she was glad to hear it and offered to heat up some coffee for me. Refused her kind offer and asked to speak to her husband. Didn't tell her why. Her prosy manner made me wonder if she knew a dead man lay in the barn. Mr. Herd and his son might well have kept the sorry news from her. Else how could she be carrying on with her bread-making as though nothing were amiss?

“Albion, young Doc Walker wants yer!” she called out. She then wiped her flour-dusted hands on her apron and gave me a teary-eyed look. “How Pilgrim did relish my bread. Wish I could have given him one last piece, God rest his soul.” So she did know.

Herd came in from the back room, and as I was telling him he should pay for the burial he rolled his eyes just as he'd described Sultan's doing when riled.

“Why should I?” he bellowed. “Weren't my fault the old drunkard got hisself kilt.”

“Albion means no disrespect to the dead,” Mrs. Herd told me, dabbing her eyes with her apron string. “Pain is what causes his meanness. He has been in great discomfort for near two weeks.”

“What is the trouble?” I asked Herd.

He stuffed his left hand into the pocket of his overalls and winced. “Never you mind,” he replied. “It will take care of itself by and by.”

I did not pursue the matter, for at that moment Coroner Daggett came to the kitchen door. “Our verdict is Death by Bovine Assault,” he announced. “And we strongly recommend execution of the bull.”

“And I strongly refuse to do it,” Herd replied. “Sultan is too fine a breeder.”

“I'd like to pickle that prodigious pizzle of his,” Mrs. Herd muttered, punching her fists into the dough. Her husband gave her a wary look. “You heard me right,” she told him. “And here's another thing I have to say, Albion.You must do the decent thing and give Pilgrim a proper burial. Go tell Mr. Jackson you will pay whatever it costs.”

Much to my astonishment, he nodded his assent and went back to the barn with us to do his wife's bidding. The undertaker covered Pilgrim's body with a shroud from his wagon, and we carried him out on a plank. Soon as Mr. Jackson took off with his pitiful cargo and the jury disbanded, Herd bid me a curt Good Day. I told him I would now like to accept his wife's earlier offer of coffee. He grunted assent, and we went back to the house.

But it wasn't coffee that I wanted. I wished to get a look at Herd's hand in the presence of his wife. He reluctantly took it out of hiding in his pocket and extended it toward me. The second finger was a bright purple and swollen so tight it could not be bent. “Got it caught twixt two milk cans I was unloading at the Concord depot. The train to Boston was comin' in, and I had to work fast.”

“In haste is error,” Mrs. Herd said.

He ignored her. “Well, Doc? It will be all right soon enough, will it not?”

I shook my head. “It will have to come off, Mr. Herd.” Although I felt sorry for the man, I kept my tone firm. “You have waited too long as it is, and if I don't operate soon the infection will spread, and you'll lose more than one finger. Your whole hand most likely. Possibly your arm. Or your life, if it comes to that.”

Mrs. Herd gripped her husband's shoulder. “You hear that, Albion?”

“I ain't deaf.” He scowled at her, but then his expression softened. I waited as they silently communicated with each other. After a moment Herd looked back at me. “Chop it off now and be done with it.”

“I'll take you back to the office to do it.”

“I ain't got time to go into town. Take the dang thing off now or not at all.”

Knew it would be useless to argue with him. The important thing was to get the job done before the obstinate old coot changed his mind. “Let's go outside where there is better light,” I said.

Got my surgical kit from the rig and laid a saw and scalpel on a splitting block out in the sun. “I suggest a good dose of spirits before I start,” I said to Herd.

“He took the Pledge,” his wife said.

“But this would be for medicinal purposes,” I said. “To help ease the pain.”

Herd shook his head most adamantly. “Gave my word to man, God, and the missus that I would not ever take a drink again.”

“Then let me hypnotize you,” I said. Herd listened most impatiently as I explained my method of inducing nervous sleep.

“I ain't got time to
sleep
, doctor. Just get on with it.”

So I did. Sat Herd on the ground and laid his hand on the block. Told his wife to hold down his arm to keep the hand steady. Tied a tight tourniquet above the first joint in the swollen finger whilst Herd stared out at his cornfields with a stony countenance.

“I'm starting now,” I said.

Mrs. Herd scrunched her eyes tight, gritted her teeth, and pressed down hard on her husband's forearm. Herd only blinked.

Used a short, curved amputation knife to cut cleanly to the bone right around the finger. Hoped Mrs. Herd still had her eyes closed as a gout of blood and fluid flowed onto the ground. Eased back skin and muscle so I would have a flap to cover and tie off the wound. Put down the knife and picked up my metacarpal saw. Glanced at Herd, pale now but still rock-steady, and brought the saw blade to the finger bone. Cut through it in three clean strokes. Let the finger drop to the ground and teased out the main artery and nerves of the stump that remained with my tenaculum. Tied them off with catgut ligatures.

Mr. Herd never uttered a sound, although he shifted his legs a bit, but no more than he would have done under the kitchen table. He looked at his wife. “You can open your eyes now, missus,” he said.

Squinting, she watched me finish the job. I washed out the wound with a dipper of well water, pulled down the skin and muscle, and closed the blunt end of the finger stump with a plaster of rubber dissolved in turpentine and spread on a tightly wound bit of linen.

“That should do it,” I said, feeling right proud, I must admit, of accomplishing a clean amputation and a good, tight dressing in just a few minutes.

Mrs. Herd picked up the finger from the ground and tucked it in her apron pocket.

“Feed it to the pigs,” Herd suggested.

“I got more regard for it than that. I'll bury it in my flower garden. Good fertilizer.”

She headed for the garden, and Herd and I went back inside to settle up. He took down a pewter mug from the chimney shelf and upended it on the table. Coins fell out in a jumble and rolled into the flour—American silver dollars, old English shillings and pence, and even a Spanish coin cut into pieces of eight. “Take what I owe you, doc.”

Picked out far less than I should have charged, but money doesn't matter as much to me as it does to him. Felt a real sense of accomplishment as I drove back to town, sure I had saved a life.

Surprised and pleased to find a bright-eyed Molly Munger in the kitchen. She assured me she felt well enough to resume her household duties, and she did indeed look the picture of health. She seems to have put her recent troubles well behind her, and I have no intention of causing her or her family further grief. I shall take the secret of who killed Capt. Peck to my grave.