Mrs. Mike

by Benedict Freedman

  And it had to be Sarah's son. Big strong Sarah, her back was used to bending under troubles. And Larry. It seemed to me that Sarah spoke more of Larry than of the others. He was a mild-mannered young man of twenty-five. He caught wild horses up in the Yellow Pass and bred the strongest sled dogs in the North.

  He had a well-stocked barn, and cattle. In the summer the trappers bought the fruit he raised, especially plums and strawberries.

  The smoke of the Carpentier cabin darkened the sky in front of me. A scream, a terrible scream came from inside, then another. I tried to undo my snowshoes. My hands trembled. The mittens were stiff with ice. Again the screaming. A man's screams are terrible. With my heart beating so it choked me, I pushed open the door and stood, staring.

  Larry lay on the table, and all his blood seemed to be beside him. From his foot to his knee, he was held by a rusted steel trap, the teeth of which clamped together, cutting entirely through the leg in thirty different places.

  "Water," Sarah said, without turning around. "Boil it."

  I couldn't move because then I saw what she held in her hands. It was a saw. She raised it. Larry's eyes followed the motion. She set the saw in the groove she had already made in the flesh above the knee. Back and forth. I saw the sweat break on the boy's face. I heard the crunching of the leg bone. Again the screams. The terrible agony of his screams.

  "Water," Sarah said.

  I moved forward. I pumped, I filled a kettle. I lifted it to the stove. The cries drew me back. His nails dug long furrows in the wood of the table. His dark eyes rolled back under his lids, leaving white, unseeing holes. The smooth muscles moved in Sarah's arms. Back and forth, back and forth. The trap bumped and clanged against the table. Sarah's strong man's hand pressed the saw's teeth deeper into the wound. It quivered, it quivered like jelly. A strange laughter stirred me. Mother and child, I thought. Mother and child. Then Sarah began hacking. The bone chipped and splintered. I looked at her face, at the clamped lips! I looked at her hands. I thought, how can she do it! I looked again at her face, relentless and calm. Then I understood. Sarah had gone mad. The good witch was evil. Her boy lay under her hands, twisting, screaming, while she hacked at him calmly with a saw. I stared at a flap of hanging flesh. It grew, it grew until it covered the whole room and had wrapped me in its soft bloody folds. The

  color deepened. It turned black, but I knew it was still blood. The screams faded, receded, became a buzzing that turned into a voice. It was a voice I knew, that I had heard before. I felt comforted. I wanted to understand the words, that came over and over again. It was my name, "Mrs. Flannigan."

  I opened my eyes and looked into the face of Bishop Grouard. I struggled to get up, but his firm hand on my shoulder kept me down.

  "You're all right, my dear. Easy now. That's it."

  I raised myself slowly into a sitting position, and he propped a pillow behind me. There were no more screams. Only a low moaning came from the boy on the table. For he still lay there, and beside him lay his leg.

  Mike stood over him with the saw in his hand. As I watched, he lowered it, wiped his face with the arm of his jacket, and turned to Sarah.

  "It's off."

  Sarah nodded, dabbed at the stump with water, cleaning and washing. Then she wrapped it in a steaming flannel poultice which she clamped into place.

  Mike walked to the head of the table and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You'll be all right now, Larry." Larry tried to speak, his face convulsed with the effort, but no words came.

  Mike made a shrewd guess. "Don't worry about a thing. I'll look after your stock until you're up and around." The boy sighed. His face relaxed. Mike moved softly away. "Don't worry," he said to Sarah in an undertone.

  Sarah was heating another poultice and measuring clear drops of fluid into a dish filled with something that looked like mustard. She nodded when Mike spoke to her, but did not look up from her work. Poor Sarah. My heart overflowed for her. I hadn't been any help to her. Not any. What strength was in her, in her hands and in her soul! I was ashamed. Not for having fainted, but for having been mad myself, and I must have been, to have had such thoughts about her.

  Mike walked over to me and helped me to my feet. The Bishop

  rose too, and the three of us went out together. We buckled on our snowshoes silently, without looking at each other. We had gone maybe a quarter of a mile, when Bishop Grouard said, "A wonderful woman. A heroic woman."

  "Amazing strength," Mike said. "That leg bone was really hanging by shreds when I took over."

  "Where were you?" I asked.

  "Out on line inspection. The telegraph was on the blink most of last winter. I want it open the year round, and I thought if I kept check on the wires ..." His voice trailed off, and we walked in silence.

  "You mustn't worry, Mrs. Flannigan," the Bishop said. "We'll take care of them. We'll see that Mrs. Carpentier has a hot supper tonight, and Larry too, if he's ready for it. And for as many nights as there's need."

  "Oh, no. I want to do that for Sarah. I want to. She saved my life."

  "Sorry, but I'm going to be stubborn about it, Mrs. Flannigan. You see, we cook en masse up at the Mission, and another dish or two to fill is nothing."

  I didn't say anything. I didn't even thank him. He must have seen that I was crying, because he said, "We'll have him up and about. I feel confident of that. So confident that I'm starting to work on a wooden leg."

  Mike shook his head. "I don't know. He's weak, to say nothing of shock. Must have been a couple of hours in that trap before they found him. He'd started up to the Yellow Pass about a week ago. So no one missed him at this end. In fact, I didn't expect to see him for months.

  "The way the Indians found him, they heard a gun go off and went to investigate. Larry was lying there, shooting into the bush. He said he was being attacked by a lion. He was off his head delirious by that time. His leg was already turning black and gangrenous. The Indians tried to pry open the trap, but it was old and rusted. They thought from the condition of the thing that it had been set a couple of years ago and lost. That sometimes hap-

  pens. They're so cleverly hidden. Anyway, they wrenched and pulled and jiggled at it until Larry passed out. That scared them, and they decided just to bring him in as fast as they could, trap and all. Which was probably the smartest thing they could have done, because they had no disinfectant, no way of stopping the bleeding even. So they brought him in, and it wasn't too tough on him because the leg was partially frozen. They brought him to my office first, and when they couldn't find me, they took him home. His mother saw at a glance that the leg was past saving. So she did the smart thing, the thing one in a million could do. She cut it off. She made a clean job of it too, and if anyone can pull him through, it's Sarah."

  I knew Mike was right, of course, and no one had more faith in Sarah than I had. But I couldn't see how that boy could live with that poor mangled leg—and the blood that had poured out of him.

  "Has a man ever been caught in one of those traps before?"

  Bishop Grouard sighed. "Plenty of times, my dear, plenty of times. Fifty or a hundred years ago the English designed a mantrap twice the size of this one, with teeth nineteen inches long and weighing about ninety pounds. It was used on large estates to catch poachers."

  I held onto Mike's arm. "Did they—did they always die?"

  "Usually. At least they were always maimed and crippled to such an extent that future poaching became impossible, and that's what the owners of the estates were interested in."

  Things moved. A gray rabbit hid behind a bush, the clouds blew into each other in their hurry, and the collision was without sound. We ourselves moved noiselessly along. Everything was smothered and blanketed by the snow. The only sound I could remember was the low moaning in the cabin we had just left.

  Thinking of Sarah's child brought to my mind the picture of Mary Aroon as I had left her, kicking her plump little legs in the bath water. I
remembered how those legs waved in the air and danced. Then I thought of taking a saw. . . No, I couldn't. Not

  even to save her life, I couldn't. And I knew I was not the woman Sarah was. And not the mother, either.

  "Kathy, what is it?"

  "Nothing, Mike." I smiled at him, but I guess the smile wasn't much of a success because he wrapped a big fur arm tightly around me.

  When we came to our house, I asked the Bishop in, but he shook his head and held out a fur mitten to us. "It was good of you, Sergeant, to put the boy's mind at rest, but just the same you've cut out a job for yourself, looking after the stock."

  "All in the line of duty. Article 37, Section C, in the Mounties' Handbook of Regulations. Anyway, you're the one that's taken on the big job . . . making him a wooden leg. Are you really going to do it yourself, Bishop?"

  "Oh, yes. All in the line of duty. See the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Chapter 25, Verse 40." Bishop Grouard smiled at us and walked on.

  "He's a fine man," Mike said, looking after the snow-encrusted figure of the old man.

  That night, when the supper things were cleared away and Mike was out tending to Larry's stock, I got down the book of Regulations Mike had referred to. I thumbed through it carefully and then shut it with a smile. There was no Article 37, Section C.

  I peeped in at Mary Aroon. She was sound asleep, and that was good because there was still another book I wanted to look in. I got out the Bible and opened it. There was a Chapter 25 in the Gospel of St. Matthew, and at Verse 40, I read:

  "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

  Nineteen

  We owned half a cow. Larry tried to give us the whole cow, but Mike wouldn't hear of it. After an hour's arguing in which Larry threatened to take off his new leg and hit Mike over the head with it, they finally settled on half a cow. The cow gave ten quarts of milk a day, and five belonged to us. Mike insisted that I drink a glass at each meal, and one before I went to bed, while I was carrying the baby. I think he bullied me a lot because whatever he wanted me to do was somehow tied up with the good of the baby, and of course he'd get his way.

  By the middle of May, Larry was quite comfortable on his wooden leg, and whenever I went over to his barn to milk Bessie, he was there, walking about, testing the leg, grinning, stroking Bessie's head, and telling me wild stories about her: how in the icy winter of 1907 her milk froze in the pail, and he carried it home in a piece of paper or a pan.

  One day I invented a game for the walk home. The object was to see how far I could swing the milk pail without spilling a single drop. But as I came within sight of the house, I saw a strange Indian sitting on my porch. I changed the pail to my other hand and walked on slowly to meet the trouble I was sure he brought. He stood up when he saw me.

  "Sergeant Mike?"

  "He's not here."

  "Big trouble. Must find."

  I set the pail down. "What is the trouble?" I asked.

  "Must find Sergeant Mike quick."

  I saw there was nothing more to be got out of this fellow, so I gave in. "He's at the reserve. I'll take you."

  "Me find." He walked down the steps.

  "I'm going with you," I said firmly.

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as we walked. He had the light springing step of the woodsman and the keen eyes that noted automatically how soft the ground was and how old the rabbit tracks.

  "Where are you from?" I asked.

  He pointed in a northerly direction.

  "What tribe?"

  "Blackfeet."

  "That's a long way away. Sergeant Mike has no authority over the people of the Blackfeet. You must have a sergeant of your own."

  The man grunted. I thought a while. We had heard that there was smallpox among some of the tribes. In fact, that's what Mike was doing today, vaccinating the whole Indian Reserve.

  "Have you sickness?" I asked.

  "No sickness," the Indian replied.

  He's probably lying, I thought. They've sent him for help, and he's afraid to tell me. Well, if it was sickness, Mike wasn't going. I wouldn't let him.

  "Sergeant Mike's not a doctor," I said. The Indian said nothing.

  We walked in an unfriendly silence to the reserve. I noticed as we approached that the village was awfully quiet. There were no children playing in front of the tepees. There were no old men squatting in the doorways smoking. No women's voices calling, laughing. No sound of loom or kettle, nothing. It was a dead village.

  I looked into the tepees, throwing back the heavy entrance skins. Nothing, no one. But things looked natural, as though they had been left but a moment before. The fires were not out, needlework was left on the floor, dogs bristled and growled at us. I opened the doors of the cabins, but again everything was deserted.

  The Indian peered over my shoulder. He was evidently frightened, for he fingered the charm pouch around his neck, and his eyes rolled nervously. He must have thought the entire tribe had been spirited away by Gitche Manito. And even so, his deductions were more positive than mine because I simply didn't know what to think.

  I was wondering where Mike was. I peered into the shadowy forest that crept up to the edge of the village, and I distinctly saw a face watching us from behind a bush. Was it a child playing a game? It couldn't be. This face was lined, was old. As I looked, the bush trembled and the face disappeared. I stared into the woods.

  Dark shapes glided like spirits among the trees. And though there was no wind, bushes and leaves rustled in the strangest manner. The Blackfoot at my side was walking very close to me and casting terrified glances at the shadow shapes.

  I felt eyes on us, many eyes, the eyes of the village. I was walking fast now, as fast as I could without running. Suddenly I heard a welcome sound. A baby was crying. The noise that came from somewhere in front of us was not a spirit wail, but the wail of a very real human baby, bawling at the top of its lungs. I turned toward the sound, into the woods; and there, behind the last tepee, was Mike. Beside him sat the crying baby, and three feet in front of them was the mother.

  Between Mike and the young mother was a large jagged boulder. Mike was talking to the woman, and as he talked he slowly circled the boulder toward her, and she just as slowly circled away from him. It took them five minutes to complete the circuit, and all the while Mike kept up a steady one-sided conversation. The woman stared at him with large black eyes, not at his face, but at his hands. I looked too and saw that in one hand he held a small glass tube and a piece of cotton. In the other he clutched a shining scalpel which he pointed straight at the young woman. I didn't blame her for backing away, and I didn't blame her for not listening to Mike's soft words.

  "It won't hurt," he was saying. "It won't hurt you at all. It's good medicine."

  And all the time the sharp, wicked-looking blade chasing her slowly around the rock. Suddenly Mike stopped circling. The girl stopped too. Mike smiled reassuringly at her from his side of the rock. The young woman watched him warily, trying to determine what that smile meant. She reached her conclusion a moment too late, for Mike took a running jump onto the rock and dived off the other side on top of her. As they went down, I heard him pant, "This won't hurt..."

  He had her pinned flat with his knees and arms. All she could do was roll from side to side and bite when his hand got close enough. His knife scraped on her upper arm. She yelled and screamed and tried to draw away from the uncorked vial, but in spite of her wriggling, Mike managed to get most of the fluid into the scraped place. When she saw he had succeeded, the woman's screams redoubled.

  Mike got up from on top of her and removed his cap. "I'm sorry," he said, "but everybody's got to be vaccinated. It's orders."

  The young woman rocked back and forth, holding her arm. Her baby had stopped its crying to listen to hers. And the baby was not the only spectator. Curiosity had brought the distant shadow shapes in closer.
/>
  Mike carefully wiped the scalpel and walked to a tree stump on which his supplies were laid out. He selected another tube and tore off a fresh hunk of cotton.

  "Who's next?" he asked, looking into a bush that shook nervously.

  "Come on out, Johnny, you're a brave boy. There's nothing to this. It won't hurt." Mike advanced slowly on the bush. Two bright eyes watched not him but the gleaming knife and the mysterious glass bottle. Mike pounced, but Johnny was quicker. He bolted from under the bush and dashed into the forest, paused at a safe distance, and looked to see if he were being followed. He was. Mike decided to use psychology. He put the scalpel and the glass tube behind his back.

  "Johnny, Johnny," he coaxed.

  I could see he wasn't going to get anywhere with Johnny, so I called to him.

  "Kathy," he said, coming toward me, "what are you doing here?" And then excitedly, "Darling, I'm so glad you've come."

  "Why?" I asked suspiciously, for I didn't like the way he was brandishing that scalpel.

  "Why, now I can vaccinate you, and they'll see there's nothing to it. They just cry from fear."

  "They do? Well, I'd like to oblige you, Mike, but you see I've already been vaccinated."

  "Oh." And then his face brightened. "How long ago?"

  "Well, I don't know exactly. Why?"

  "If it's more than seven years, you need a new vaccination," and he started uncorking that little glass vial.

  "Oh, no," I said hurriedly. "It wasn't that long ago. It was just recently. Just before I came out to Uncle John's."

  "I thought you didn't remember when it was."

  "Well," I said, "I remember now."

  Mike put the cork back grudgingly, then his eye lighted on the Blackfoot. He smiled at him ingratiatingly.

  "Now, there's nothing to this, nothing at all."