Banes told Philip to remove his shirt. He asked how Philip was feeling, how he’d been sleeping, if he’d had any chills. Philip told him he felt perfect. He had his temperature taken, and he stood silently while the doctor listened to whatever his heart and lungs had to say. Banes seemed to spend an awfully long time listening to the lungs, Philip thought, and for a moment he got nervous. Could he actually be ill even though he felt fine? What mysteries did his body contain?
Banes had Philip cough, hold his breath, inhale and exhale deeply, repeat. Banes listened through Philip’s chest and through his back and through his sides. The stethoscope had felt painfully cold at first, but now it had warmed to Philip’s body temperature.
Banes made his diagnosis: Philip was healthy. Or, more precisely, he was exhibiting no sign of disease. Hopefully, that was the same thing.
“Well, son, I think you’re as fit as can be.” Philip couldn’t see the doctor’s lips through the mask, but he could tell the old man was smiling from the way the wrinkles around his eyes lengthened.
Philip smiled back. “Good to hear it.”
Banes gestured to the door. “Go on out. Your family’s waiting.”
Philip pulled his dirty shirt back on and grabbed his coat, but before he could head for the door, Banes grabbed him by the forearm.
“If you feel anything suspicious, anything at all—no matter how minor—you come to me immediately. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Banes seemed to judge that the look in Philip’s eyes was sufficiently serious, and he released his arm.
The first thing to hit Philip as he walked through the doorway was how clean the air tasted now that he was free of the stench inside. The wind on his face brought the scent of the fir trees and the wet earth and the smoke escaping from distant chimneys. He was free.
The sun had set, and only trace amounts of light were filtering in from the bottom of the western sky, but still it seemed bright to Philip compared to the inside of the storage building. About twenty yards away stood Charles, Rebecca, and Laura. Off to the side and behind them stood Graham and Mo and their rifles.
Philip smiled, feeling self-conscious. It was then that he remembered his feelings upon first being locked in, the shame of failing in his duties, of putting the town at risk. That shame returned as he scanned the faces before him.
His fear of what the others thought was fleeting, however, as Rebecca took the first steps toward him and then Charles and Laura followed. Everyone was smiling, and Rebecca was embracing him. He felt Laura’s hand on his shoulder as Rebecca said welcome back. Her voice was choked up, and he realized there was a lump in his throat as well; his eyes were watering and he felt happy and ashamed and loved all at once.
After Rebecca embraced him, he looked at Charles, who was smiling broadly and also seemed on the verge of tears. He stepped forward and embraced his son, for the first time that Philip could remember.
Philip looked over his shoulder at Graham, who had not approached. Maybe he didn’t want to interrupt the family’s moment, Philip thought. So he waved to his friend, and Graham nodded back.
“How you feeling?” Graham asked without a smile.
“Just fine. Doctor says I’m all right.” Philip stepped toward Graham, but Graham and then Mo backed away. Philip stopped.
“I think we should keep away just for now,” Graham said evenly.
Philip looked down instinctively, as if he had been scolded. He stepped back into the fold of his family and looked at Charles.
“He wants to be extra careful,” Charles said quietly. “He has a baby at home.”
Philip nodded as if he understood, but he was confused. Doc Banes had just given him a clean bill of health. So was he a threat or wasn’t he? Philip saw that Graham continued to watch the storage room as if he still feared the soldier inside it. Charles, too, wore a look of concern, one that his smile and embrace had momentarily concealed. “Is everything okay?” Philip asked.
Charles nodded, then suggested that maybe Rebecca and Laura could head home and prepare supper. This seemed to be a coded message of some sort. Rebecca nodded, and the two were quickly on their way.
“Philip,” Charles said once they were out of earshot, “what has the soldier told you about himself?”
Philip shrugged. “Plenty. We’ve been locked up together for two days.”
Charles asked about the soldier’s family, where he was from, what he did for a living. Philip answered as best he could.
“Is there anything about him that you’ve found…suspicious?” Charles asked.
Philip didn’t understand where this was going. He thought of the times during the past two days when the normally jovial Frank would go quiet, the moments that had left him feeling cold.
“What do you mean?”
Charles told Philip about the morning visit from the APL, and though he didn’t share all the details, he mentioned the possibility of a German spy in the area.
“A spy?” Philip felt betrayed, though he wasn’t sure who had betrayed him. He liked Frank, even felt that they’d become friends. “He told me he’s from Missoula—”
“Did he say anything about three soldiers being killed?”
“No. He said he was in a naval accident, and he and one other guy landed together. I think that was the guy that we—” He cut himself off. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing—never mind. I didn’t believe them, either.” Charles patted him on the shoulder, offering a smile that looked forced. “Why don’t you catch up with Rebecca and Laura? I just need to stay a moment and speak with Dr. Banes after he’s finished.”
Even though he didn’t understand what was happening, Philip turned around and, without looking back at Graham, hurried off as quickly as his wooden foot would allow. Rebecca’s and Laura’s figures were barely visible in the fading light.
“That bodes well for me, I guess,” Frank said to Doc Banes after Philip had walked out the door.
“Let’s not take anything for granted,” Banes replied, examining Frank as closely as he had Philip, inspecting his throat and ears, listening to his heart and lungs.
Within minutes, Banes had reached his conclusion: the man was healthy.
“Are a lot of the men at Fort Jenkins sick?” Banes asked, knowing the answer.
“A few. Not many.”
Banes listened again to the man’s lungs, which he had already determined were healthy. “That’s fortunate. Other camps aren’t so lucky.”
“I’ve heard.”
Banes stepped behind him and put the stethoscope on Frank’s back again, asked him to breathe normally. He noticed abrasions on the sides of Frank’s neck, as if he had been in a fight, wrestled to the ground. The marks looked like they had faded with time; they must have been quite bad a few days ago, though his shirt collar would have concealed them. His right shoulder was badly bruised.
“You said you were in a naval accident?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You didn’t fall in the water, did you?”
“No, sir. But it was pretty hairy out there.”
“Why were you on a ship? I thought you were in the army, not the navy.”
There was the shortest of pauses. “It was a landing drill. Everyone in the army does them, far as I know.”
“What exactly happened?”
“I’m not too sure. Either we hit something or something hit us, and the boat started going down. It was at night, and I was below deck at the time.”
Banes contemplated how far he should push this. His fingers had started shaking somewhat, which is why he was spending so much time at the soldier’s back, where his nervousness would not be on display. But he wanted to see Frank’s eyes when he asked the next question. He walked around and put his thumb on Frank’s right eyebrow, pulling up. The idea of examining an eye in this dim light was absurd, but hopefully his patient wouldn’t realize it.
“Is that how the three soldiers died?” Banes asked.
Frank’s neck twitched, dislodging Banes’s finger.
“What soldiers?”
Banes considered reaching for the eyebrow again, pretending to continue the farcical examination, but he chose against it. He felt unsafe now. He should walk away, but he felt tantalizingly close to discovering what he was looking for.
“The three soldiers who were killed at Fort Jenkins last week.”
The soldier looked at him long and hard. “Is this examination over, Doctor?”
Banes stepped back. “You appear healthy to me, Private.”
“Then I’d better be going.” Frank gave Banes a final glance, then picked up his shirt, buttoning it as he quickly walked toward the door.
“Graham!”
Banes’s shout was a shock to the soldier, who barely had time to understand what the word meant or why it was shouted when the door before him swung open. Frank had been less than ten feet from escaping his dark and stinking prison, ten feet from the night and the cold and the stars, when two men with rifles stepped in and pointed their weapons at his chest.
“Stop right there, buddy,” Graham commanded. Charles followed right behind Graham and Mo; all three wore gauze masks.
Doc Banes stepped to the side, walking out of the rifle’s sights in a large semicircle until he was standing alongside the guards.
“What is this?” the soldier asked, and despite the dim light, his inquisitors could see his face turning pale.
Doc spoke into Charles’s ear, loudly enough for Graham and Mo to hear but not the soldier. “I don’t believe him. He’s hiding something.” Banes paused. “But he does seem healthy.”
“I’m a United States soldier,” Frank declared. “You can’t keep me here anymore. You let Philip out—”
“Philip hasn’t been accused of being a spy, and he hasn’t been accused of murder,” Charles said evenly.
Frank shook his head. “I am not a spy.” He did not seem to be startled by the accusation.
“What’s your real name, and where are you really from? And what were you doing at Fort Jenkins?”
“My name is Frank Summers.” His voice sounded choked, from either the strain of lying or something else. “I’m from Missoula, Montana. And I was doing what every other American man was doing—except some of the guys in this town, so I hear.”
Charles folded his arms. “I find it strange that you haven’t asked us to contact your base, Private. If this is all a misunderstanding, couldn’t you clear things up with a quick telephone call?” Of course Commonwealth had no telephones, but Charles wanted to hear the man’s response.
“Please…” Frank looked down at the floor, then back at Charles. Whether he was trying to find a possible weapon, an escape route, or an answer to Charles’s question was unclear to his captors. “Please, just let me go. I’m not a spy, I’m just…” He shook his head. “I’m no danger to anyone.”
He still hasn’t denied the murder charge, Banes thought, somewhat amazed. The man before them suddenly looked so pitiful—a dirty tatterdemalion with uncombed hair, an untended beard, and a look of absolute despair. But if the guns weren’t trained on him, perhaps he would be grinning behind their backs.
Charles took a breath and issued a slight nod. “Keep him in here,” he said to the guards. “We’ll get some chains.”
I
The flu had only worsened in Timber Falls.
Sipping Scotch, Joseph Miller sat in his den with Chief Bartrum. They had made their journey to Commonwealth based on a hunch that everything Charles Worthy had said and done seemed to confirm.
“What do you make of it?” Miller asked.
Bartrum shook his head. “It’s crooked. I don’t know if they do have anything to do with what happened at Fort Jenkins, but there’s something going on out there. All three of ’em looked guilty of something.”
“They were acting strangely,” Miller agreed. Bartrum had declined Miller’s offer of a Scotch, which confirmed the rumor that the police chief didn’t drink. But Miller noticed a peculiar look in the man’s eyes. Maybe he just preferred drinking alone.
“Obviously, I don’t like Worthy,” Miller said. “I don’t like his politics and I don’t like his town. But I would have been inclined to leave them alone, let them live whatever crazy way they choose to.” He sipped at the Scotch, felt the warmth in his throat. “If he’d invited us in and told us they had nothing to do with Fort Jenkins, then fine. But there’s something wrong about them closing themselves off. Crooked, like you say.”
“Want me to look into it some more?” Bartrum’s arms were folded across his broad chest. He looked out of place in such a refined room, surrounded by leather-bound books and fine paintings. His days had increasingly been spent assisting doctors, transporting and burying dead bodies, and dealing with the petty lawlessness that the state of emergency had engendered. Bartrum didn’t know what sights his son was being confronted with in the war, but he didn’t think they could be any worse than all that he had seen the last few weeks. Focusing on Commonwealth would be a welcome distraction from being a garbageman of souls, collecting the dead and making them disappear.
Miller nodded. “I’m curious about their enlistment records. Men in Commonwealth would have had to enlist in Timber Falls, correct? So let’s look up the records, see how many men from Commonwealth signed up for the draft.”
Bartrum stood to leave. “That should be easy—Merriwhether was on the enlistment board.”
Miller finished his Scotch. “Any news on his daughter?”
Bartrum paused. “She died this morning.”
After Bartrum left, Miller sat back in his chair, feeling fortunate that he and his wife had no children. Girls in Timber Falls were dying of flu, and boys from Timber Falls were dying in France. Just a few miles away, the people of Commonwealth were hiding from all this, doing God knew what behind their locked doors. Miller poured himself a second drink, wondering what he would say to J.B. when he saw him next.
II
The next day Doc Banes woke up more refreshed than he’d felt in days. Whether from relief at the healthy diagnoses for Philip and the soldier, or from the cumulative exhaustion of too many near-sleepless nights, he had finally slept soundly. When he rose, he stretched his back, which always troubled him in the colder months, and tried to remember his dreams, one of which had been about his wife. Already they were fleeting.
He had eaten a full breakfast and enjoyed a second cup of black coffee when there was a knock at his door. He opened it to find a young woman with dark circles under her eyes; she obviously had not slept as well as Banes.
“Doctor, my husband’s real sick.”
In less than ten minutes, they were in her house. The shades were all drawn, she explained, because her husband had complained of the brightness. But it was barely light out—it was early still, and thick clouds hung over the town.
She told Banes her husband had felt fine the previous day. No sniffling, no coughing. But in the middle of the night, he’d been racked by coughs that shook the bed. When the morning whistle had roused her, her husband had remained motionless on his back, as if he’d been dropped there from a great height. When he tried to speak, he coughed for a minute before he could form words. He managed to say that his whole body ached badly. He would not sit up to drink, he would not roll over to try and get more comfortable, he would not move at all.
It was a small house, nearly identical to the others on that block. The kitchen was not clean, and it smelled of whatever they had cooked last night, beans, perhaps, or stewed cabbage. A few empty bottles huddled in a group at the edge of a table. She led Banes into the bedroom, where the scent of alcohol was stronger.
“How much did he drink last night?” Banes asked hopefully.
She looked off to the side. Her name was Jeanine, and she was petite, barely ninety pounds, with unkempt, stringy dark hair. “No more than usual.”
Before entering the room, Banes put on a gauze mask. As soon as Jea
nine saw him do so, she started fidgeting nervously.
“Morning, Yolen,” Banes said. Yolen was the opposite of his wife—his Goliath feet nearly hung off the bed, and his head looked too small for his body. He inhabited the bed so fully that Banes wondered how Jeanine shared it with him. His hair was the lightest blond, almost the mane of an albino. Doc wasn’t sure if his skin was always this white.
“Doctor,” the sick man greeted him with effort, his voice as tiny as his body was massive.
In a few minutes, Doc had the following facts: Yolen had worked a full shift at the mill the previous day, he’d felt perfectly fine all night, he’d eaten no meat for dinner, and he’d drunk perhaps more whiskey than was wise but not nearly enough to lay flat a man of his size. His lungs sounded dreadfully thick and his throat was inflamed. He was clearly fighting a tremendous infection that had sapped all of his strength; he had a fever of 104 degrees, and he was badly chilled.
Banes asked whom they’d had contact with last evening, if anyone.
“Our friends Otto and Ray,” Jeanine said, and Doc wrote down their full names on his pad. Then he left the bedroom, and Jeanine followed, closing the door without a sound.
“Is he gonna be okay?”
Despite all his years of medical service, Banes still never knew who would react well to bad news and who would lash out, who would beg and who would deny the cold facts before them. The one thing he had learned was that people would startle and surprise you until your dying day.
So he ignored her question and instead gave instructions: plenty of rest, plenty of fluids. If noise bothers him, keep the house quiet. If light bothers him, cover the window. Give him aspirin for the pain, but no food, though he probably wouldn’t want any. Absolutely no liquor. Just keep him as comfortable as possible.
“Call me immediately if anything changes.”
“He told me his friend Leonard never made it to the mill yesterday.”
“Oh? Why not?”
Up until that point, Banes had still maintained hope that this was not the flu, despite the telltale signs.
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