The Physician's Tale

by Ann Benson

  He walked over to the table where the sheaf of pages lay. “This,” he said with a sweep of his hand, “is God’s plan. He has made it possible for me to leave a portion of myself on this earth that will resonate long after I am gone. It is the child of de Chauliac’s mind, but in many ways, I am his child as well. I am a far better physician than I would have been had he not put his touch upon me. When I am long dead, a part of me will live on in this masterpiece.” He paused, then said, “It is a vanity, I know, but I cannot deny my own desire to leave a good footprint on this world, so that others who follow will find the path easier.”

  She approached and stopped directly in front of him. “This is not a vain aspiration,” she said. “All men should have such a desire. The world would be far better for it.”

  They were quiet for a few moments, until Philomène said, “I will miss being able to speak with you.”

  “And I with you.”

  “You spoke of your journal…. You have inspired me. I shall keep one of my own, and when you return, you can know what transpired in my heart in your absence.”

  He smiled. “You must write down all of your day’s progress as well, so I can be envious when I return.”

  She searched for words for a minute, and finally said, “You have spoken with Guillaume….”

  “Earlier. He has taken the news of my departure as well as can be expected; having a playmate will be helpful. I suspect that a few days hence the true weight of my absence will descend on him, and he may be quite sorrowful.”

  “I will watch over him, for he and I will share that malady.” She came closer to him and, with no shame or hesitancy, wrapped her arms around his waist. She turned her head sideways and pressed it against his chest. “Please,” she whispered, “will you speak to me, as you did Guillaume, to calm my fears of your leaving?”

  Alejandro put his arms around her as well and rested his chin on the top of her head. “All will be well,” he said, barely believing it himself. “There will be so much more time for us.”

  He touched the side of her face, then gently took hold of her chin and guided her mouth toward his. “This is my promise to you,” he said as he pulled away. “That I will return, that I will hold you in my arms again, that I will place a thousand kisses on your sweet lips.”

  She pulled him back into her arms. “Then place a hundred tonight,” she whispered. “In promise of the rest.”

  She took his hand and led him out of the surgery, up the stairs, and into her room. There, in the light of a single candle, she let her nightdress slide from her shoulders, then undid his buttons with her delicate fingers. When their bodies came together, he wept, in the joy of having her, and the dread of never having her again.

  Sixteen

  Speaking to the entire group, James listed the requirements and then gave a brief explanation of how it would work. “We’d have to plot out a series of cells that would connect us directly, since we can’t depend on other cells for relaying. One can go on top of your windmill, and you’ve got electricity right there. There’s a direct line from the top of the windmill to a cell just south of where we are. We can angle that cell so it points toward us and put one on something tall near us. We might have to put one in between, but we won’t know that until we try it. Then we just have to hope there’s a signal somewhere. And if we get one but it’s weak or intermittent, we’ll need another relay point. But we’ve got some pretty high trees on the edge of the woods, without much obstruction.”

  “Can the cells in between work without electricity?”

  “That depends on what type they are. Just before the last round they started putting in models that had internal solar power sources. Maybe we can find a couple that are in good shape.”

  “Where are we going to find them?” Caroline asked.

  James smiled. “On top of those towers in the valley,” he said. “Hopefully no one got there before us.”

  “Someone will have to climb?”

  “Unless someone can fly.”

  Janie stared into the microscope. The first of the repeat samples that Michael brought back showed the same level of bacterial activity. She sighed deeply, then set about the task of loading the second set. She heard a voice from near the door.

  “Mom?”

  Her son was there, keeping his distance from the equipment until he had permission to come closer, as he had been taught to do.

  “Come in, honey,” she said. “Just don’t touch any of the slides.”

  He came directly to her side but kept his hands to himself. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Checking the samples that Michael brought back.”

  “How’s it going?”

  So adult, she thought. Too adult. She pulled off her gloves and set them down, then wheeled her chair away from the scope.

  “I guess well. The samples are very usable, but I’m not sure I’m going to like what they tell me. There’s a lot of bacteria out there.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not, but we can’t be sure where it is, so we have to be careful.”

  “Oh.”

  She judged, from his somber expression, that he was unhappy to hear that for a very specific reason.

  “What is it, Alex?”

  “I hoped the samples would say there wasn’t any bacteria.”

  “So did I.” He had no idea how deep that hope ran.

  He remained quiet for a moment, then said, “I want to go with Dad when they go out to get the cells.”

  Cold day in hell was Janie’s first thought, but she forced herself not to voice it.

  He’s not an infant, he can ride a horse as well as I can. This is his world; he deserves to see it.

  But it’s so dangerous out there!

  She thought about the original Alejandro, of his journeys, and the perils he survived.

  “I’ll talk to your father,” she said, “but I can’t promise that we’ll decide it’s a good idea.”

  “Okay!” He bounced up and down with excitement. “I’ll go do my math now,” he said when he’d calmed down. He ran off looking happier than she’d seen him in a long time.

  They agreed to ride out to the nearest of the cell towers in the valley. Tom, Lany, and James would go, as would Alex. Evan would stay behind.

  They set out on foot with just one horse for their supplies, tools, and gear; it was too steep, at least at the start, for horses to negotiate with riders. The ground was spring-wet and the footing occasionally slippery, so it took most of the morning just to reach the point where the pitch became tolerable. Alex nimbly climbed circles around the adults until the going became easier. They reached the lake in mid-afternoon and made it to the base of the cell tower just before sunset.

  The first thing Tom did was to take out his binoculars and hand them to James, who trained them on the top of the tower.

  “Hot diggity dog, they’re solar,” he said with a broad smile. “I guess we go up.”

  Alex stood near the crumbled cement footing and looked upward, shading his eyes against the sun.

  “Up there?” he said.

  “Yep,” James answered.

  “Who?”

  “You. Isn’t that why we let you come along?” He grinned at Alex’s look of surprise. “April fool,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s April first. April Fool’s Day. You know—we get to play jokes on each other and no one can get mad about it.”

  Alex stared blankly at him.

  “I guess you don’t know.”

  As James was explaining further, Tom crawled out of one of the small tents. “Food!” he announced. He spread out a mat and laid out several cloth-wrapped bundles. They ate grainy bread with preserves and cold pork.

  “Guess we better figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow morning,” James said as he stowed his utensils away.

  The three adults looked up the tower as Alex had done before.

  “We already disc
ussed this,” Tom said. “I climb, you stay on the ground. If we lose you, there’s no point to any of this.”

  James reiterated his displeasure with that notion.

  Lany said, “You’re sure you want to do the climb?”

  He drew in a breath, wondering just how sure he was. “I am,” he said. “You’ll have to talk me through it from down here. With the binoculars, I mean.”

  Until the light faded, they went through the steps Tom would follow to remove and lower the cells. When the sun finally snuck below the horizon, they all bedded down. The next day would be full and trying at best.

  With rope strapped to his waist and assorted tools in his belt, Tom began the seventy-five-foot climb to the top of the tower. He hitched up the safety rope as he went, slipping it over and around the foot pegs as he moved upward. He stopped every few feet to rest, but not for too long, being mindful of the time pressure they faced. It took him almost half an hour to reach the top.

  He looked down the tower to the ground; fear shot down the back of his legs. A wave of vertigo passed through him, and he clutched on to the pole with all his might.

  Don’t look down, don’t look down, he told himself. Just do what you have to do and get back on solid ground. When he’d found his calm again, he looked up at the assembly of cells. They spoked out from the center of the pole in three layers, six to each layer. He was surprised to see, wedged between the top two layers, a nest of some kind. From his vantage point, he couldn’t see if it was occupied.

  He uncoiled a section of rope from his belt and tied it around a loop on one of the cell units, then went to work on the bolts that held it in place. One by one, they gave way, but not without some strength on his part; eight years without maintenance had taken their toll.

  He lowered the first cell unit to the ground slowly; Alex, so eager to be helpful in any small way, was there to pull it in. He untied the rope while James held the cell unit, then gave a small tug on the rope, signaling that it was okay to pull it up again.

  Tom drew the rope in carefully and secured it at his waist again, then went to work on the second cell unit. A wind came up; he steadied himself against the pole as it pushed on his back. The sound of the air rushing past him, combined with the grating sound the wrench made as he loosened the bolts, was just enough to mask the frantic warning cry of the eagle that winged its way back to feed its young. Tom had the second cell unit lowered so it was about twenty feet from the ground; below it he saw the rest of the party looking up, their eyes shaded against the sun as they watched the dangling cell unit inch downward.

  It was Alex who saw the bird first, when she was only a few seconds away from his father. He’d never seen a bird that large before—except a turkey, and they didn’t really fly. He screamed, “Dad! Look out!” and waved his arms frantically in warning.

  But Tom didn’t seem to hear him. He was still focused on lowering the cell unit when the eagle came at him with its claws extended and beak open. Alex watched in horror as his father let go of the rope and flailed at the bird. The cell unit fell rapidly downward with the rope snaking behind it. James reached out in an attempt to catch it as Alex rushed toward him to help. A sharp metal edge glanced across James’s left wrist and hand; blood pulsed out in spurts, all over Alex’s jacket.

  Mom will be mad flashed through his brain, and then just as quickly disappeared when he looked up and saw his father dangling from his safety rope. Then Lany was there, pushing him aside as she pressed the hem of her jacket against James’s wounded wrist.

  Alex stepped back and looked up again. He saw Tom, still under attack from the enormous bird, working his way down the pole one agonized step at a time, slipping the strap of his belt around the footholds with one hand, beating away the bird with the other.

  “Alex!” He heard Lany’s voice through the haze of confusion. “Come here! I need you to hold the rag on James’s cut.”

  “But my dad—the bird is still—”

  “I’ll help your dad, but you have to help James….”

  He went to her. She took his small hand in one of hers, then placed it firmly on the blood-soaked rag. “Keep pressure on it,” he heard her say.

  He did as he was told. He stood motionless at the base of the pole with his hand pressed against James’s wrist as Lany sent arrow after arrow in a counterattack against the bird.

  Stop fluttering, his mind screamed. Let my father come down!

  But Lany’s arrows all went wide.

  “Hug the pole, Dad!” he screamed.

  Tom clung to the pole with both arms. Lany aimed carefully and let another arrow fly. This one hit its mark; the determined mother spiraled to the ground, one wing flapping frantically, the other immobilized by the arrow.

  Alex looked pleadingly to James, who understood immediately. He pressed his own good hand to the rag on his injured wrist. “Go,” he said through his teeth.

  Alex ran to the very base of the pole. “Dad?” he called out.

  “I’m coming down, Alex….”

  “Be careful!”

  “I’ll be okay, son,” he shouted down. “I’m coming—get away from the bottom of the pole in case I have to jump the last few feet.”

  He did as his father told him to do and rushed away to where Lany was working on James’s wrist, not far from where the eagle had landed. He glanced back at his father and saw that he had come a few steps down. His fear began to abate.

  The bird was still thrashing around, trying to lift herself up into flight again. Alex stood over her and stared down with a hatred so deep that it frightened him.

  “Don’t get too close,” Lany warned. “She might try to hurt you.” She tightened a bandage around James’s wrist, then rushed to where Alex was standing over the bird.

  True to her prediction, the eagle made one last upward heave with wild eyes and searching beak. Alex jumped back, and Lany came forward, pulling the ax off her belt as she advanced. With one swift chop at the neck, she stilled the raptor.

  They stood panting over the carcass of the magnificent bird for a moment. Alex bent down and pointed to a small metal box attached to one of the eagle’s legs. “What’s this thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He began to reach for it. Lany quickly grabbed his hand.

  “Don’t touch that,” she said.

  He looked up at her. “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t know what it is.”

  “We should find out,” the boy said. “Can’t we take it off and bring it back with us?”

  It was then that they heard the sharp crack. They turned and watched, horrified, as the pole to which Tom was strapped came down in a sideways arc, as if in slow motion. Tom’s body weight turned the pole so that he was underneath when it hit the ground. When the debris settled, Tom lay still under the pole, one leg savagely twisted.

  Alex ran toward his father.

  “Dad? Dad?”

  Tom moved one hand slightly toward his son. Alex took hold of his hand and squeezed. Lany stood above them, frantically undoing the buckle of Tom’s safety belt, which still tethered him to the pole.

  His voice was barely a whisper. “I love you, son.”

  “I love you, Dad.”

  “Tell your mother and Kristina I love them too.”

  He did not hear the chopping in the background. “You—you—can tell them yourself!”

  “Yeah,” Tom whispered. Then he closed his eyes.

  “Alex, you have to help me now,” Lany said urgently. “We need to move the pole.” She handed him the thick branch she’d just removed from a maple tree. “I’m going to lift up the pole with one stick and I want you to use this one to push it away.”

  She positioned her own stout branch under the pole just past Tom’s head. “Get on the other side of me,” she said. She placed the smaller stick under the pole a bit farther down than her own. “I’m going to lift, and you’re going to push,” she said. “Ready?”

  The boy nodded quickly.<
br />
  “Okay, don’t push until I tell you to.” She tightened her grip. “All right, here we go.”

  She used all of her compact strength to pull up on her own stick. The veins on her temples bulged with her effort. The pole rose up minutely.

  “Now!”

  Alex dug in his feet and shoved with all his might. The pole rolled forward, and Lany was able to raise her own stick-lever more.

  “More!” Lany said.

  With all the strength his body could manage, Alex shoved his stick. The pole slid away and landed on the ground, about a foot past Tom’s head.

  One of his feet was still pinned under it. Lany clawed in the earth with her hands to create a channel until she was able to pull the foot free.

  “Okay,” she panted, “it’s you and me now. We have to take care of your father and James. We need to get them back up the hill, and your father won’t be able to walk, so we have to make a stretcher,” she said. “James can’t do anything because his hand is really badly hurt, and he’s weak from losing so much blood. So you’re going to have to help me to help them.”

  Alex looked down at his father, whose eyes were still closed. His voice quivered when he asked, “Is he going to be all right?”

  “When we get him back home, your mom will be able to help him, I’m sure of it.”

  They cut the necessary branches and laid them out on the ground in a rectangular pattern, then lashed the corners together with the rope Tom had used to lower the cells. They folded one of the tents so it fit neatly into the rectangle, then secured it with the tie-downs.

  “Let’s bring it next to him,” Lany said.

  With as much tenderness as possible, Lany and Alex rolled Tom onto the makeshift carrier, then covered him with another blanket. Using the rest of the rope, they secured the travois to the back of the saddle and raised it up so Tom would not be dragged along the ground.

  “We’ll have to take turns riding the horse,” she said. “She’ll do better if there’s weight on her front, not just in the back. I want to make sure everything works okay, so I’ll start.”