Micah had often heard Chester’s thoughts on the future of electricity. Electricity, according to Chester, perhaps even more than the internal combustion engine, would change the world. Already Chester had a kerosene-powered generator behind his house. The only room wired to it was the library, but when he ran the generator, Chester could, with the mere flick of a switch, fill the room with light.
“And it’s not only in carpentry or the other trades, no, sir,” Chester continued. “Change is in the wind. We’re about to see great advances in every field. In a short four months, it’ll be 1901, and we’ll have entered the twentieth century. Mark my words, Micah, the twentieth century will be a renaissance, a time of wonder, man’s greatest adventure.”
“God, Chester,” Micah said with a grimace, “you’re the one person I know who could turn the pleasure of sipping eighteenyear-old Scotch into pure misery.”
“Misery? What do you mean, misery?”
“Precisely what I said. For years now, ever since you started subscribing to those scientific periodicals of yours, and—worse yet—started reading that Wells fella and the other one, the Frenchman—”
“Verne.”
“—Verne, yes—ever since you began reading all of that stuff you have had nothing on your mind but gadgets and electricity and gasoline, and God knows what all. You think of nothing else. You’ve turned into a real wind-bag.” Micah added that wind-bag remark mostly for his own amusement. He recognized there was some truth in all Chester said, but he couldn’t resist laying it on as heavy as he was because there was nothing in life he liked better than baiting Chester Hedstrom.
“Go ahead,” Chester said, “scoff, but it’s coming. I promise you. This new century offers the human race the greatest opportunity in history. It’s a new age.” He tapped his temple with an index finger. “Our intellect, Micah, can turn this planet into a paradise. We’ll have the means to end hunger and poverty. We can free ourselves from the sickness and drudgeries of life so we can evolve into something better. Perhaps we can even eliminate war. Can you imagine that? An entire century without war. There is that potential in the twentieth, and it’s thrilling. The human race has a chance to become something more than it’s ever been. I’m telling you, this new century will give us the chance to step out of the darkness and into the light.” Chester gave an awkward little smile at his grandiose turn of phrase, but it was clear he meant every word he said.
Micah seldom turned down the opportunity to debate. In most instances he didn’t even care which side of an issue he was on. The debate itself was the important thing. And he especially enjoyed the mental jousting he and Chester had always engaged in over drinks. Micah’s first impulse was to go at it with Chester now. He was tempted to argue that man instead of ending war might well find more horrendous ways to wage it, but he stopped himself. Tonight what he wanted was to relax. All he said in response to Chester’s excited and optimistic rant on the wonders of the twentieth century was, “You, my friend, have much greater faith in humanity than I do.”
Chester frowned, “My, my,” he said with a tone of sadness that might have been feigned, Micah couldn’t quite tell, “you have become a horrible cynic in the years you’ve been away.”
“All part of my intensive legal training.” Micah lit another cigarette, and they sat without speaking, enjoying their Scotch and smokes.
“So,” Chester asked after a bit, “when do you plan to see her?” Chester was a master at approaching from the blind side.
Micah didn’t answer right away. He blew a small ash from the sleeve of the robe, set his drink on the table, crossed his legs. “No plans,” he finally said.
“Did the two of you correspond while you were away?”
“A little nosey, aren’t we?”
“Curious, only curious.”
“Well, if you must know, no, we didn’t. We have not communicated in three years. Before I left, she said she didn’t want that. She felt we should make a clean break.”
“Why do you suppose she’d say something like that?” Chester asked. The bottle of Glenlivet was beside him on the table, and he freshened their drinks.
“The reason she said it is obvious; don’t you think?” Micah said.
“Yes, it is obvious. She wanted you to tell her how wrong she was.”
Micah shook his head. “You’re full of insights tonight, aren’t you?”
Chester blew a stream of smoke toward the window.
It was after eight-thirty, and the sun was below the hills to the west, but the sky was still light, and gold trimmed the bottoms of the clouds.
“All these years,” Chester said, shaking his head, “I tried my best with you, Micah, I see now how much I’ve failed. Imagine my disappointment.”
“There was no hope for us. You know that. Even if we didn’t have the obvious problem, she was too, I don’t know, sensible—too practical to put up with someone like me.”
“You really don’t know much about women, do you? You two had problems. So what? There was no reason to avoid keeping in touch.”
“We couldn’t be together, and neither of us wanted to sneak around anymore. It was time for it to end. My leaving for Cheyenne provided us the opportunity to end it. It was a mutual agreement.”
Chester scoffed. You’re a fireball, Micah, or at least you were back then. You should’ve swept her off her feet and taken her with you.”
Micah searched Chester’s face for the usual signs of joking, but this time none were there. Despite that, Micah said, “You’re not serious.”
“All right, maybe taking her to Cheyenne might’ve been too much. That’s my own fiery side speaking. My own passion is always warring with my practical side. I agree, you weren’t in a position to support a wife then. But what’s to keep the two of you apart now? You still love her, don’t you?”
“No,” Micah said, “I don’t. It was difficult, but I’ve let it go.”
Chester sat forward in his chair and gave Micah a skeptical look.
“Damn it, Chester, why are you doing this? You and I both know it’s impossible. She knows it’s impossible. Hell, she knows better than anyone how impossible it’d be.”
Chester leaned back. “There would be difficulties,” he allowed. “That’s true.”
Micah snorted a derisive laugh.
“But it could be that those are the kinds of difficulties that’d bring the two of you closer.”
“I did love her,” Micah admitted, “but I’m past that now.” He didn’t know why it was important to make Chester understand, but it was. “And I’ve taken my lead from her. She’s the most sane, practical girl I’ve ever met. She always knows the right thing to do, and I promise you, Chester, when I left three years ago, we were both in agreement that our ending it was the right thing to do.”
Micah felt his emotions rise, and he hated that feeling. It was the sort of thing over which he was trying to gain control. This time, though, he wasn’t sure what he felt. It wasn’t anger, although he suspected it could quickly turn to anger. Perhaps he felt resentment. Things were always so much easier for Chester. It might’ve been that Chester’s romantic and practical sides were always at war, but he wasn’t fooling Micah. Chester always knew where the battle lines were drawn. For Chester all lines were clearly drawn, and it was impossible for him to accept that for the rest of humanity lines were often blurred.
Micah was about to point this out when, without knocking, Mrs. Eggers came into the room. Her already sanguine complexion seemed even redder than before. She made no apology for her interruption. “Doctor,” she said, “there’s a woman at the door. She claims to need your help.”
Micah and Chester followed Mrs. Eggers from the parlor into the foyer. The front door stood open, and standing on the porch was Cedra Pratt. Her features were pinched and carried the look of worry. But it wasn’t Cedra that caught Micah’s eye. Standing beside her mother, her head leaning against Cedra’s shoulder, was Polly. And it was Polly’s face that
drew Micah’s attention. Her right eye was swollen shut. There was a two-inch cut along her left cheek. Blood sheathed the side of her face and covered the front of her dress.
“Now, Doctor,” Cedra said, her lips a thin line beneath her patrician nose, “will you please, please help us?”
“Here, Micah,” Chester said, “get the door.” There was a screen on the front door, and Micah held it open as Chester stepped out onto the porch and took the girl from her mother. He placed his right arm around Polly’s shoulders and walked her into the foyer. She staggered as they stepped through the threshold, and when she did, Chester scooped her up and carried her.
The girl was not unconscious, but it was clear that she was in shock. Although some blood still oozed from the wound on her cheek, for the most part the bleeding had stopped, and it was drying in dark, thick streaks down her face and neck.
“Light the lamps in the examination room, Mrs. Eggers,” Chester said. The woman, who appeared only now to be aware of the injured girl, stared at him dumbly.
Micah touched Mrs. Eggers’s forearm and got her attention. “Please, Mrs. Eggers.” He jerked his chin toward the back of the house. With that, she turned and disappeared into the shadowy hallway. If Chester questioned this woman’s value as a cook and housekeeper, he must have grave concerns regarding her abilities as a nurse.
Cedra followed Chester into the house, and Micah closed the doors behind them.
Chester’s clinic was located on the Main Street side of the house. Micah knew that earlier, when Chester first opened his practice, he’d had an office downtown, but he disliked the noise in the daytime and the inconvenience at night, so after a couple of years he had the ground-floor guest rooms in his home remodeled and moved his office there.
Mrs. Eggers did not move quickly. She was still lighting the lamps when the rest of them made their way into the room. Micah took a match from his pocket and lit the four lamps above Chester’s examination table.
These lights showed Micah more of Polly’s face than he wanted to see. The flesh around her right eye looked like ground meat. The eye was swollen to the point where only a slit remained between the upper and lower lids, and through this slit Micah could see that the eye itself was as red as the blood that seeped from the wound on the girl’s left cheek.
Mrs. Eggers stood with her mouth agape.
“Mrs. Eggers,” Chester said, “don’t stand there staring. Get me some water so I can wash up and clean these wounds.” The woman didn’t move. “Now!” he snapped. Mrs. Eggers jumped, her hands leaping to her breast like two fat quail startled into flight; finally, she left the room.
“Polly,” Chester said, his tone the opposite of what it had been a moment before with Mrs. Eggers. “I know you’re in pain, and I’ll give you something for it in a bit, all right?” There was a softness to Chester’s voice that Micah had never heard.
Polly didn’t answer.
“Polly,” he said again, “can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she said. A tear leaked from the narrow slit of her eye.
“Do you know who I am?” Chester asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “Dr. Hedstrom.”
“That’s right. I’m going to fix you up, but you have to tell me everywhere it hurts. Will you do that?” All the while he was talking, Chester was feeling her head, neck, and shoulders. His hands moved down her arms, along her breasts and ribs. As his hands moved, his eyes never left Polly’s face. All the while, he spoke in that soft, musical voice, which, to Micah, sounded alien to the Chester he’d always known.
“It hurts here.” Polly’s fingers moved toward her face, but Chester caught her hand.
“Anywhere else, Polly? Does it hurt anywhere else?”
“I—I don’t think so, no,” Polly said. Her hands drifted down to her abdomen and she held herself. “Just my face. My eye and jaw.”
“Does this make it hurt more?” he asked as his fingers explored her jaw line and throat.
“No, not more.”
Mrs. Eggers came into the room carrying a steaming pan of water. She poured some of the water into another pan on the table beside Chester, and she took the remainder to the counter on the far side of the room and placed it next to a basin.
“All right, Polly,” Chester said, “you lie still for a moment. As soon as I wash my hands, we’ll get you cleaned up.”
As he turned to go to the basin, he asked Cedra, “What happened here, Mrs. Pratt?”
Chester asked the question as though it held no more significance than an inquiry about the weather, but Micah could hear something more in Chester’s voice. It was unspoken, but there was another question beneath the surface. Micah had no idea what Chester was asking, but he knew it was there. And he knew he was not the only one aware of it. When Chester asked the question, Micah saw the knuckles of Polly’s fists whiten.
“We were leaving Mr. McConners’s party,” Cedra said, nodding in Micah’s direction. “Polly and I had stayed to help clean up.”
From the table came a whispered, “No.” Micah, who was now standing closest to the girl, expected he was the only one who heard it. It was less than a whisper. It was as much a groan as an articulated word.
“As we were leaving,” Mrs. Pratt continued, “I stopped to talk to one of the women. Polly wasn’t feeling well, so she walked on ahead.”
“No.” The sound was louder this time, although not much. Polly was watching her mother with an intense expression, but Micah saw that Mrs. Pratt, whose attention was focused on Chester, hadn’t noticed.
“She was on Fourth Street, between the park and Mrs. Jordan’s boarding house, when he attacked her—”
“Momma, no.” Polly came up from the table. Her good eye was wide and filled with panic. “No, no!” she screamed. “You can’t tell anyone! He warned me. No!”
Chester whirled around and came back to the girl. He put his arms around her and said, “It’s okay, Polly. Shhhh. It’s all right.”
Polly bared her teeth and kicked the heels of her shoes against the table so hard that two of the buttons on the right one popped open, and the shoe came halfway off. Micah grabbed her feet and was amazed at the slender feel of her ankles. The bones were thin and fragile. They were so light, they felt hollow like the bones of a bird. But she was strong.
“Fetch the ether, Mrs. Eggers,” Chester said. He held the girl’s arms and shoulders. She strained against him so hard that cords the size of pencils stood out in thick relief along her neck.
“No, no!” she screamed over and over. Tears mixed with the blood on her face, and lines of thin red soup ran onto the linen that covered the examination table. “Nooo!” she wailed. “Momma, nooo! Nooooo!”
Mrs. Eggers returned to the table carrying a gauze mask in one hand and a tin container in the other. She handed them to Chester.
“Here, Mrs. Pratt.” Micah nodded for the woman to take Polly’s feet, and he went to the head of the table and held the girl’s arms. Chester turned his head and poured a small amount of the container’s contents onto the mask. In an instant the room filled with a heavy, medicinal odor. Chester placed the mask over Polly’s mouth and nose. The moment he did, her struggling slowed. In another moment, it stopped altogether, and the room was silent except for the girl’s smooth, even breathing.
When it was clear she was sleeping, they let her go. Micah looked down at the battered, injured girl and wondered what kind of man could do this sort of thing. Polly, a small young woman, appeared even smaller and more fragile as she lay before them unconscious.
Cedra, standing at the foot of the table, said, “Oh, Polly.” The woman’s long, trembling fingers rose to her lips. Without blinking, she stared down at the face that a few hours earlier Micah had noticed was so pretty. He watched now as Cedra’s eyes filled, brimmed, then overflowed. “My baby,” the woman whispered. “My little girl.”
Chester bent over the table and tied off the last of the catgut sutures he’d used to close the wound on P
olly’s cheek. Once the knot was tied, he trimmed the end with a pair of chromium scissors. When he was done, he stood erect, winced as he rubbed the small of his back, and said, “She’ll have a scar.” He handed the scissors to Mrs. Eggers. “But it’s along one of the natural lines beneath the eye, and it won’t even be noticeable.”
Mrs. Eggers put the scissors away, then poured the dirty water into the basin. Chester continued to rub his back as he said, “After you’ve disposed of that water, Mrs. Eggers, you may call it a night.”
“All right, doctor,” she said, and left the room.
“The anesthetic will wear off within the hour,” Chester said. “When she comes around, I’ll drive the two of you to Mrs. Jordan’s in my buggy. Polly’ll still be a little groggy, and I expect she’ll sleep well tonight. Tomorrow, though, she may have some pain.” He went to a cabinet in the corner of the room and took down a small pasteboard box. “If so, give her one of these tablets.” He tapped the front of the box with an index finger. “But don’t exceed the dosage printed here.” He handed the box down to Mrs. Pratt, who sat in a straight-backed wooden chair. She had sat in the chair without speaking during the entire course of Chester’s cleaning and suturing her daughter’s wounds.
“All right, doctor,” she said. “Thank you.” She had regained her composure. To Micah she seemed too composed. She was now stiff, formal, and overly polite.
Chester crossed to Polly and lifted her left eyelid. He looked at the pupil and allowed the lid to drop. “All right,” he said, turning around and facing Cedra, “would you like to tell me what happened?”
The woman gave a curt shrug and said, “She was beaten.” Without saying more, she crossed her legs. When she did, her dress rose above her ankle. Mrs. Pratt was at least sixteen years older than Micah, but he couldn’t help but notice what a handsome ankle it was.
“It’s obvious, Cedra, that she was beaten,” Chester said. Exasperation ruffled his words. “Now if you’ll tell me by whom, I’ll have Brad Collins throw the man in jail. I’m sure Earl Anderson would be happy to prosecute whoever beat the hell out of Emmett Pratt’s daughter.”
Out of the Darkness Page 4