Eutopia - A novel of terrible optimism

by David Nickle

  §

  Jason got Dr. Waggoner awake soon enough that they could talk about a plan for confronting Dr. Bergstrom. They figured they would not talk about the tiny people that Jason said he’d seen in the quarantine, the strange man in white and the other man behind the door, and concentrate on the question of why Dr. Bergstrom thought it was safe to strap down a healthy boy alone in an empty ward room.

  “You going to talk to him about that girl?” asked Jason. “All butchered like a hog as she was?”

  Dr. Waggoner shook his head. “We fight one battle at a time,” he said. “If we tidied things right, he won’t be sure we even looked at her. No, I will deal with that next time I can speak with Mr. Harper. Which,” he said, looking significantly at Jason, “I intend to do as soon as I am able.”

  That was about all the planning they had time for, before the door swung open and Dr. Bergstrom, followed by Aunt Germaine, stormed in.

  “What are you doing treating patients, Andrew?” he demanded.

  Dr. Waggoner leaned back on the pillows they’d propped behind his back, as Dr. Bergstrom approached him closer.

  “The boy was cut,” he said. “He could have become infected.”

  “Do you have any notion,” Bergstrom said, “of the risk that you took in removing this patient from quarantine? He could be carrying an illness that might wipe out the town!”

  “My,” said Andrew. “The entire town you say. That is quite some ailment.”

  “And you removed him.”

  “I did not remove anyone. He was already out when I met him.”

  “Not possible.”

  “How is that?”

  Dr. Bergstrom drew back at that question, because Jason figured he had no good answer. Dr. Waggoner must have figured that too, because he showed the faintest trace of a smile as he nodded.

  “You are not supposed to be practising,” said Dr. Bergstrom finally. Your arm, Andrew.”

  “It works well enough for stitching a cut.” Dr. Waggoner looked at his hand coming out of that splint, waggled the fingertips. “And however you choose to address me, Nils, I am still a doctor here. At least according to Mr. Harper.”

  “Yes. Mr. Harper.” Dr. Bergstrom regarded him with a squint. “Your benefactor.”

  “I wonder, should we perhaps speak with him about this breach?”

  “Do not be so quick, to run—”

  “Yes?”

  Dr. Bergstrom glared silently, not answering.

  Jason wanted to stay for more but he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his aunt standing close. She bent to whisper in his ear: “Come, Nephew. This is a matter between these men now. Not us. Not now.”

  “But—” Jason did not care for the idea of leaving Dr. Bergstrom alone with his friend. But when he caught Andrew’s eye, he nodded, as if to say, Go on. I will be fine here.

  Dr. Bergstrom looked at Jason too—and that, more than Dr. Waggoner’s encouragement, was what made up his mind, because Jason had never seen a man look hungrier than did Dr. Bergstrom looking at him then.

  “Good bye, Dr. Waggoner,” he said. “Thank you kindly for the stitching.”

  Dr. Waggoner smiled. “Take care of yourself, Jason.”

  And out they went, hurrying down the hall and past the window overlooking quarantine.

  “Why did you leave me in there?” said Jason as they moved to the stairwell. Aunt Germaine glanced at him with a queer half-smile.

  “In the quarantine?” she said. “I am sorry, Nephew: I could do little else. Dr. Bergstrom is the senior medical official in Eliada.”

  “Senior medical official. Is that the same as the law?” Jason didn’t let his aunt answer the question. “Because if he is the law, like a sheriff or a judge, then I guess he has a right to inject a fellow with poison, tie him up and leave him to die. Otherwise . . .”

  “Jason,” said Aunt Germaine, patting him on the shoulder, “the important thing is—the truly important thing is, that you fared magnificently. You—”

  “I could just leave, you know.”

  Germaine’s eyes widened in the dark of the stairwell. The two stood on a landing, she a step below Jason, and he towered over her. Perhaps that is what gave Jason the courage to say that thing. Because after having said it, he could scarcely believe it had come from his mouth. It was a region of thought he had not come near—even when his temper was at its hottest.

  But he found it was a region with a clear path through it. So he went on.

  “You got me out of Cracked Wheel when things were bad, and I’m grateful for that, and glad to know I have kin yet. But when I was sitting in the cabin with my mama, I figured on carrying on with what I could. A fellow willing to work can find it anywhere I figure. I’m surely big enough.”

  Aunt Germaine opened her mouth to speak. But a sound came out that was unfamiliar to Jason. “Why—” she began, and “My nephew—” she went on, and finally, she opened her arms and flung them around Jason’s shoulders, and Jason realized with a hitch that he’d done something that nothing—not the death of her sister, nor the wasting at Cracked Wheel—nothing else had yet done in his presence.

  Through his selfish words, he had made his Aunt Germaine cry.

  §

  “Why did you do that to the boy?” said Andrew when Jason and his aunt were well gone. “He’s not sick. From what he told me, any exposure to the illness that took lives in his home town happened long ago. And if he were somehow contagious . . . Well. He spent a long time on train and boat and foot without quarantine. What would be the point of containing him now?”

  Dr. Bergstrom pulled up a chair to Andrew’s bedside. “You feel that you are qualified in some manner to question my decisions with regard to this boy? That’s interesting, Andrew,” he said.

  “That boy was in danger, and you put him there,” said Andrew. “Deliberately. You tied him down and locked him up with that rapist, Mister Juke.”

  Dr. Bergstrom leaned very close to Andrew’s face, and as he did so his expression underwent a change. And that was the first true sense that Andrew got that he might actually be in physical danger from this man.

  “Do not,” he hissed, “call him that—you damned meddlesome nigger. Do not dare.”

  Andrew drew back against his pillows. All he could think about was Maryanne Leonard, the things that had been done to her corpse. What could this man’s hands do to living flesh?

  “Doctor,” he said as levelly as he could. “Control yourself.”

  His words seemed to have some effect. For a moment, Dr. Bergstrom looked as if he would strike him, but the moment past. The doctor sat up, ran a hand through his hair, then looked deliberately into his lap for a moment before shutting his eyes tight.

  When he opened them again, he drew a deep breath. He stood fast enough the chair rocked at his calves.

  “What an error it was,” he said softly, “bringing you to Eliada.”

  Andrew did not say anything to that. He could do nothing but stare at the man across from him.

  “Well. I have other business to attend to. So if you will excuse me—I will leave you to your rest.”

  Dr. Bergstrom lifted his hands from his side—with a flash of silver in one of them. Before Andrew could react, he grabbed Andrew’s good arm, pulled it out straight and pushed it down onto the mattress, then pausing not an instant to find his mark, jabbed the hypodermic needle into it. Andrew moaned, as the drug found its way into his veins.

  “Rest,” said Dr. Bergstrom again, wagging the spent hypodermic in front of him and backing away, he slipped out the door and hurried down the hall.

  §

  Aunt Germaine was set up in a room on the third floor, not far from Dr. Bergstrom’s own offices. There was a table, a couple of wooden chairs, and five big boxes full of papers.

  Aunt Germaine, having dried her eyes and calmed her nerves after Jason contritely explained he was not going anywhere, said, “Those are like larger versions of my file cards. They
are all the records that Dr. Bergstrom has kept of the people here in Eliada. From the time that it began.”

  “That must be a lot more than those ones.”

  “Not so much more,” she said, whisking her skirts aside as she sat down. “Eliada is a young town. It was incorporated in 1887—just a quarter of a century ago. Currently, some eight hundred souls call it home. But its population has grown only in recent years—since Mr. Harper and his foundation arrived and began their work in earnest.”

  “That the Utopian paradise business that Ruth was talking about?”

  Aunt Germaine smiled wryly. “Near enough the mark,” she said. “Let me see if I can explain it a little better. Mr. Harper comes from a family that has done well for itself in timber and mining. Most of their more profitable holdings are farther west of here—in Seattle and California. Mr. Harper came into—shall we say, possession of this town, inasmuch as he took control of the sawmill, at the turn of the century. So we are properly regarding just a decade of medical records.”

  “Because the hospital came with Mr. Harper.”

  “Correct.”

  “And so what is it that makes this place so Utopian? The hospital?”

  “Utopian. Those are that young Ruth’s words.” Aunt Germaine shook her head. “The hospital is not the cause of it. It is, however, a signpost.”

  “A signpost.”

  “It is an indication that the community cares for the health and hygiene of its members. However remote—this is a safe place. Do you know what Eliada means?”

  Jason frowned. “It’s from the Bible. One of King David’s sons? I got that right?”

  “Very good. And it means, ‘Watched over by God.’ That is the principle upon which Mr. Harper governs.”

  “What was it like here before Mr. Harper came along then?”

  Aunt Germaine shrugged. “I really cannot say. But,” she said, patting the top of one of the boxes, “we will be able to say a great deal about the last decade here. Once we have looked through these, and conducted our interviews.”

  “I guess you want to get started.”

  “In time,” said Aunt Germaine. “To begin with—I think we ought to find a good breakfast. I have your clothes here. We can go into town, eat our fill—and you can tell me all of what happened last night.”

  Jason did not tell all of what happened. In fact, he left out important parts and that changed the story utterly. He was not sure when he decided to withhold these things from his aunt, but decide he did. As they left the hospital and made their way along the wide roads to breakfast he told her a story: how, left alone in the ward room, he had panicked when a large raccoon came into the room and had gotten curious about him. So he’d cut himself loose, he told her, as he ate a plate of fried eggs and thick-rinded bacon, and run off into the dark, where he had cut himself on the scalpel something terrible. Dr. Waggoner had found him outside, bleeding and naked, and taken him inside and stitched him up.

  “So we went up to his room, where he said he would keep me until morning, on account of neither of us thought it was a good idea going back into that quarantine building.” He pushed his plate away. “On account of the raccoon. And just generally.”

  Aunt Germaine patted a napkin on her lips and regarded him. They sat in the dining room of the Eliada Empire Hotel, which had in it five tables, each round and covered with identical red-and-white checked tablecloths, and they had it to themselves. In fact, from the way the old man who ran the place greeted them coming in, Jason got the idea that fixing breakfast at ten in the morning was a real travail. Now, he could feel himself being watched.

  “A raccoon,” said Aunt Germaine.

  “Or something.”

  “It must have been quite something. You do not want to talk about the things that happened in there, do you?”

  “We are talking about them.”

  “No we are not,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Not truly. But that is fine, Jason. It was an awful night. You will speak of it in time.”

  There was a rattling behind them then as a door opened. Sam Green walked in, hatless but well-dressed. Aunt Germaine pursed her lips and looked at her hands. Jason nodded back hello when Sam Green waved.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Trust everything went well at the hospital?”

  Jason thought about speaking, but before he could, Aunt Germaine spoke up.

  “Thank you, yes, Mr. Green,” she said. “Fine.”

  “Fine,” he said, and sat down at a table near the door, a respectful distance from the two of them. “Glad to hear it, Mrs. Frost. You able to start your work, determining all our fitness and whatnot?”

  “Not yet,” said Aunt Germaine. “Thank you.”

  Green’s moustache spread like a fan over his smile.

  “And you, Mr. Thistledown? You ready to assist?”

  Jason nodded.

  “Well today looks like a fine one for it.”

  “Yes,” said Aunt Germaine. “Thank you.”

  Sam Green nodded, reached into his coat and pulled out a little black book, stuck his nose in it to signal the conversation was done—or he was finished trying to start it. He took out a pencil and began underlining. At length, Aunt Germaine leaned forward.

  “You saw something in there other than a raccoon,” she said. “You did. Didn’t you?”

  Jason swallowed. “I—guess I did,” he said.

  “It is important that you tell,” she said. “Not anyone—” she glanced over to Sam Green, who was now scribbling something on a piece of paper he’d used to mark his place “—but me.”

  “You.”

  “You should tell me, so I can protect you.”

  And as she looked at him in that way, her eyes wide and generous, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder, Jason almost did tell her everything. She was family, after all, and if you could not trust family with your secrets then who could you trust? And had she not given him that scalpel—that little knife that had saved his life as far as he knew, in the quarantine?

  But as he tried to put it into a sentence, he found that he couldn’t.

  “Just don’t let him put me back in that quarantine,” he finally said.

  Aunt Germaine nodded. “I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t we go explore a bit? My work can wait a few more hours. Why not see what we can find in this little town—well away from that dreadful quarantine.”

  “All right,” said Jason. “That sounds fine to me.”

  They got up to leave, and as they did, Sam Green stood as well.

  “Ma’am,” he said as she stepped through the door to the street. As Jason passed, Sam Green was more demonstrative: he clapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand. “Pleasure to see you once more, young Thistledown. Enjoy your tour of the town.”

  Jason swallowed as he let go of Sam Green’s hand, did his best to avoid making a face.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, meeting the older man’s eye.

  “Hurry along, Nephew,” called Aunt Germaine from the street. He did. It was only at the end of the block, as Germaine rooted in her handbag for a fan, that he opened his hand and looked at the scrap of paper that Sam Green had left him there.

  BE AT NORTH DOOR OF SAWMILL AT AFT SHIFT CHANGE, it read.

  And underneath, in big letters underlined twice:

  LEAVE AUNTY BEHIND.

  13 - The Mercy of Sam Green

  The sawmill’s north door was at the edge of a vast and shadowed lumber yard—a whole town made of stacks of square-cut timber, whose avenues and alleyways were choked in sawdust so thick it might have fallen in a storm. Jason Thistledown waded along its main thoroughfare as the hour neared four o’clock. A bell was ringing to signal the shift change, and because of this he was not alone on his march. Men were walking to and from their work. A couple of them made eye contact with Jason but just one of them, a heavy bald man whose beard dangled well past his neck, spoke to him, from across the crude avenue.

  “Hey fellow,”
he called, and beckoned him. Jason cringed inside. He was sure he was going to be found out, told to scat and then he would never learn what Sam Green wanted with him and not Aunty. But there was nothing for it, so over he went.

  The man looked at him. “You new here, heh?”

  “Yes sir,” said Jason. “Just came in yesterday, sir.”

  “You name?” The man had a strange way of talking; like his tongue was stuck in his mouth sideways.

  “Name!” he repeated.

  “Jason,” Jason said.

  “Nowak.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Is good place in Eliada,” said Nowak. “Godly. You like.”

  And then he slapped Jason on the back and laughed deeply, and gave him a push forward hard enough to make Jason stumble.

  “Thank you, sir,” Jason said, and waved as he stepped away from Nowak. Jason swore to himself. Telling his name to a strange fellow on his way to a secret meeting was probably a bad mistake. But it too was done.

  Soon enough, they came upon the sawmill itself, and met with another group of men who were coming out. In this chaos, Jason stepped to one side, into a little alleyway between two long stacks of lumber. MEET AT THE NORTH DOOR, the note had said. AT, it read. Not INSIDE it.

  Jason settled into shadow as the lumber yard cleared out, and waited. He’d positioned himself to have a view of the door without being too conspicuous—or worse, seeming like he was hiding.

  He did not wait there long. The Pinkerton man showed up only a moment after the whine of the saw blade started up, and just preceding the first plume of sawdust that flew out a high opening. He was wearing his hat now, but no coat. His suspenders were showing atop a dusty white shirt. The revolver holstered at his hip was in plain sight.

  He came out of the same door they were to meet by, and without so much as looking left or right ambled over to the spot where Jason figured he’d hidden himself so well.

  “Aunty back there anywhere?” he asked, and when Jason shook his head he nodded. “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing,” said Jason. “I left her a-napping back at the hospital.”