"Just now asleep,” Ed replied.
"Where's Maggie?"
"She's conked out, too,” Ed grinned, but didn't look directly at Ted.
Ted sat back down. “You sure were gone a while."
"I took a leak,” Uncle Ed stretched out and yawned pressing his hands up against the framing of the entry to the hall. “Then I checked on the girls, and damn if before I came back I didn't have to take another squirt.” He walked over tracing his finger along the back of the couch running first over Lee's shoulders and then his wife's. “That beer sneaks up on you once you've had a six pack or two. It seems after the fourth or fifth, the dam breaks."
Uncle Ed came over to standing just to the side of Miss Laura. “Scoot over, sweetie. Let me squeeze on in."
Miss Laura raised her right hand and pointed. “I think you missed something."
"What?” Uncle Ed looked down.
Lee could see it now. His shirttail was sticking out through his half zipped fly.
Uncle Ed backed off, turning to face the wall. He tugged and worked. “Damn thing's stuck."
"Need some pliers?” Ted asked. “I got some needle nose out in the garage."
"Hang on.” Ed turned and grabbed the church key off the table. He hooked it in the zipper tang and worked it back and forth.
"Don't hurt yourself,” Ted teased. “You might want to use that thing later."
Lee heard it come from under her breath; or maybe it was as though he had read Miss Laura's thoughts. “Fat chance.” In any case, he was sure it had come from her.
Ed worked the zipper free, tucked in his shirt, and finished zipping up. He was even more red-faced now than when he'd emerged from the hall.
"Scoot over,” he said, walking around to Ted. “Let a guy by."
Ted scooted back in his chair and Uncle Ed stepped over and fell into the other. Slapping his hands on his knees he then reached out to the remains of the six-pack on the table. “Ahh, another cold one.” He popped the top off with the church key and took a drink. “I stand corrected; it's a semi cold one.” He balanced the bottle on his knee. “Maybe we should put these back in the ‘frige?’”
Miss Laura was glaring at him, working the eye more and more vigorously all the time.
Lee could see he made a point of avoiding her eyes.
"We'll just have to drink ‘em up that much more quickly,” Ted said.
Uncle Ed grabbed up another handful of peanuts and sat back. Crunching away, he mouthed, “Okay, I'm ready."
"Ready for what?” Miss Laura said coldly.
This time he caught contact with her eyes. Lee could see it from where he sat. Uncle Ed's face was still beet red, and Lee thought there was a smear of something pink on the bottom of his jaw, just below his ear.
"The Captain.” Maybe it was that he was drunk, but Uncle Ed sounded a little sheepish, almost apologetic. He leaned forward and snatched up his pack of cigarettes and lit one, never looking up.
"Yeah, the Captain,” Ted chimed in. “How ‘about round two?"
"I thought y'all had forgotten all about that subject,” Miss Laura was definitely more than a little sarcastically. “I'm sure y'all would rather talk about your old football memories, or love conquests, while you drown in all your warm beer.” Lee could feel it; she again squeezed his leg. “I'll get Lee to take me out and show me that new bike of his. I need some fresh air."
"No, I want to hear,” Lee spoke up in a panic. “You were just getting to the good part. You were going to tell us about what happened to the Captain when he was at the Ballard house."
"Yeah, sweetie,” Ed almost whined. “We want to hear, really we do."
Miss Laura took her hand off Lee's leg and sat back, pressing into the couch. “Well, if y'all are truly interested."
"We are!” came from all three.
Lee glanced at Miss Laura. There was something there.
"I'll show you my bike later, honest,” he said. “If you really want to see it, I will. I promise."
There was that bedeviled look, or just a brief trace of it. “Okay,” she said and pointed at him with the eye wadded up in her fist. “I'll hold you to that. The cool air would do me good.” She tugged at her blouse. “I'm so hot, and I still feel a little bit sticky."
Lee swallowed. He couldn't believe he'd just promised.
Suddenly, Miss Laura clapped both hands together sandwiching the eye between her palms. Charlene stirred and made a little, squelched cry, but only rolled over, not waking up.
Uncle Ed put his finger to his lips, “Shhh."
"Yeah, let sleeping babies lie,” Ted whispered.
Miss Laura seemed to go blank, again peering out into the darkness behind the window. Then she began. “At the Cherry Point Union headquarters,” she spoke slowly at first, “a Colonel Murchison, a career soldier, was the commanding officer over the Union garrison. Technically, he was in charge of everything, including the hospital. But, his first priority was rounding up the marauding bands of loyal rebel soldiers who were steadfastly refusing to surrender. He therefore allowed Captain Limpkins a free hand in anything that had to do with day-to-day hospital operations. Some of the Union victims from the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville were being brought up by train, so Captain Limpkins was an extremely busy man as well."
"What was Andersonville?” Lee asked.
Miss Laura stopped, obviously trying to come up with some parallel he could identify with. “You know of the Nazi concentration camps from World War Two?"
Lee nodded. “Yes ma'am,” he said just like he did in class. He'd seen pictures in school of ovens and skeleton people. The most striking photograph he remembered was of a huge pile of eyeglasses, each pair removed from a human being who had eventually died at the hands of the Nazis.
"Andersonville was like a concentration camp. The Confederacy didn't have enough food or medicine for its own men, much less any Yankee prisoners. The soldiers interred at Andersonville were starved and sick. Some had been wounded, and there wasn't any medical care for them. It was horrible, truly a great shame on the noble goals of our ancestors who fought for state's rights.” With the return to her deep, soft accent, she sounded somewhat like the lady from the Daughters of the Confederacy, Lee remembered, who had addressed the school at assembly last year on Confederate's day.
"There wasn't any proper medical care for the regular folks who lived in the valley or along the river here either. The regular folks were almost as bad off as anybody could imagine. When General Sherman marched down from the North, the Yankees destroyed everything: homes, crops, rail lines, bridges, and livestock, anything they could. What they didn't burn or blow up, they stole. The folks all throughout this area were in a terrible state of despair. So it was natural that when a man had his foot crushed while working in the fields, or a child was bitten by a water moccasin, the people had no recourse but to bring their family members to the hospital at Cherry Point, even if it was run by the Yankees."
"They called it a pest house, right?” Lee wanted to demonstrate the new word he'd learned.
"That's right. They came to the Pest House,” Miss Laura nodded. “But after a while people started to talk openly about things they deemed were improprieties."
Miss Laura anticipated Lee's question. “Improprieties are when someone does something they really shouldn't. Usually it's something sneaky, or something that's gone on behind closed doors."
Again, Lee nodded. He could have brought up a few recent examples, had he wanted to.
"For example, very few of the women that came to Cherry Point to give birth had their child survive long enough to leave the hospital. Now, infant mortality was terribly high back then, as there was no knowledge of antiseptics, and techniques in the event of any complications were rather crude. But according to the records I've read, most women would have been better off to have stayed at home, or to at least have utilized the services of a local mid wife.” She had difficulty with the word “utilized,” and it
took her three tries to get it right. “As well, older children who would be brought in for something relatively common like dysentery, ague, or a broken leg would never leave the hospital. Again, mortality rates were ridiculous back then, and even in the most modern hospitals of that day secondary disease and infection killed many of those who came in for treatment of other less serious maladies. This was to be expected. But at Cherry Point it wasn't so much that these people died, that was to some extent a harsh fact of life, but their bodies disappeared."
"Oh, keen-o,” Lee said finding himself becoming excited. “You mean someone was stealing the bodies?"
Palming the eye with a thumb, Miss Laura held up her hands as if to say who knows.
Lee squirmed back into his corner of the couch.
"Now after a while this got to be too much, and the local populace became incensed. At first, the excuses about lost paperwork or misidentification were accepted grudgingly. After months of this, with no satisfactory resolution, a group of citizens petitioned the Colonel. At the same time, it came to the attention of the Colonel that there had been irregularities with treatment of wounded prisoners who were brought in from the captured Confederate holdouts. A man brought in with a bullet wound to the arm, might end up having both legs amputated as well as the arm. With the exception of two individuals, every man who had come under Captain Limpkin's care lost at least one limb, and in a few extreme cases some had lost all four. It was his cure all. If you had snakebite on the foot, the entire leg was amputated. Even if you only broke your arm, it was the same as well."
Miss Laura swirled around the straw in her glass and then took another dainty sip. “It surely does get a body dry talking like this,” she said, finishing with a hiccup. “Dear me,” she apologized. “Where did that come from?"
Again, Lee noticed she never put the eye down. She would keep it in one hand all balled up, then rub it vigorously between both, or put it between the fingertips of the other hand and feel it, then roll it around admiringly in the light. If his dad and Uncle Ed even noticed at all it didn't appear to register.
"It wasn't until a number of Union soldiers who'd lost limbs filed a grievance,” she continued, still occasionally stumbling over a word here or there, “that Colonel Murchasen was forced to do something. It all came to a head, so to speak, when one soldier wrote a letter complaining to a relative in New York who just happened to be a senator. Shortly after that, Colonel Murchasen organized a hearing to ascertain the facts behind the allegations. But again, little seemed to come of it. The Captain claimed he was saving lives, and there really wasn't anyone around qualified to dispute his judgment. The Colonel entered into his preliminary report that the most compelling reason, if any, for considering Captain Limpkins for removal from duty was concerns about his personal health. Painfully thin before, since his assignment to Cherry Heights, he had lost even more weight and looked almost as desiccated as those poor walking skeletons saved from Andersonville. It was entered into the report of the proceedings that the Captain's skin was of a corpse-like pallor, a shade of gray with no blood or color to it. His one good eye had degraded to an ugly yellow, not unlike a mange ridden cur from the street, it was described, and he had lost almost all his hair. From the Colonel's description, especially the part about the cur, I would assume Captain Limpkins was suffering from a jaundice, or if he did have consumption, it had probably spread."
"Sounds bad,” Ted spoke up for the first time in a while.
"Apparently not bad enough, as he was able to explain his way out of everything. He defended the amputations claiming due to gangrene or infections, and that he'd had no other choice. After all, he was the doctor. Limpkins was quick to point out that almost every man who lost a limb, at some point complained that it wasn't necessary. Since he was the only real medical officer, he dismissed his own appearance as nothing for anyone to be concerned about. He pointed out that he had no problems performing his duties and always demonstrated a vigor for his work. The only plausible explanation he offered at all was that he suffered from an aversion to the greasy fried foods in the officer's mess hall and was allergic to a substance he claimed was in the local greens and vegetables. He said that was why he was rarely seen in the officer's mess, preferring to take his meals alone in his cabin."
On the other front, the issue of the children's deaths didn't seem to be all as important as the loss of their bodies. He explained this away, blaming it on the slowness of the Negro orderlies, or saying the parents simply had waited too long to claim the body and in the interest of public health they had to be burned. Or in some instances in specific complaints, he simply denied that it had happened at all. What it came down to was it really was all just a show to appease that one senator. No one in Washington gave a hoot about what went on down here. But truly, the greatest factor in the Captain's impunity was that Colonel Murchison himself didn't give a damn about the local people. He hated what he called, ‘the mutinous Rebel criminals and their white trash sympathizers.’ In Murchison's opinion, everyone who lived in the South was a sympathizer and therefore barely fit to be tolerated."
"You're saying all this happened at the Ballard house?” Ted asked wondrously. He pointed to the east wall. “Right over there?"
"Yes, from the spring of 1865 to the following spring."
"I had no idea,” he said, leaning way back in the chair and stretching out. “I mean I knew the Yankees used the place, but I never heard any of this before."
Miss Laura simply shrugged.
"The final result was the inquiry was closed and nothing was done. It was business as usual at Cherry Heights. Adding to the local problems, the winter had been relatively mild that year, and there were an over abundance of snakes throughout the area in the spring of ‘66.
"In May, a little girl was bitten by a cottonmouth while playing near her family's raft. The family had come down river and was camped nearby. Since she was nearest the Cherry Heights pest house her brothers brought her there. Her parent's raft was tied up down at the landing which stood where the railroad trestle now comes through the natural cut in the bluffs. Her two brothers then located their parents who had been looking for work in town. They fetched them back, and leaving the brothers to guard the raft the frantic parents quickly arrived at the hospital. The soldier at the desk told them to take a seat outside, and they would be informed about their daughter in due time. This wasn't acceptable to the father, a burly Irish immigrant who'd been a professional prizefighter in New York, before heading west. Ignoring the soldier at the desk, he set off on a room-to-room search for his daughter. Most of the garrison was out that morning, so only the one soldier manning the desk was there to try to stop him. By the time the soldier, who quickly suffered a broken nose and a concussion, regained consciousness and ran for help from the soldiers in the outbuildings down by the river, the Irishman had found his daughter."
"Where'd he find her?” Lee asked quickly.
"She was in the surgery. The leg with the snakebite already lay off to the side on another table. Captain Limpkins had just applied a tourniquet to the other leg, the good leg and was poised with the bone saw ready when her father burst into the room. Infuriated at what he saw, the Irishman didn't accept for a minute Captain Limpkin's hurried explanation that the other leg's removal was necessary because the poison had spread. The man was attempting to leave with his daughter, when a group of soldiers rushed in, trailed by the one from the front desk with the broken nose. It was five against one, but in the close confines of the surgery everything favored the Irishman. When Limpkins saw that the soldiers were losing, he managed to get out of the room and fled for his cabin outside the main building."
"What do you mean his cabin?” Uncle Ed asked. “As an officer, wouldn't he have been quartered in the main house?"
"No. He'd been quartered in the house originally, but shortly after being stationed at Cherry Heights, Limpkins had insisted on moving out of the officer's quarters and into a cabin he'd had built. He
had been very specific about the exact location, insisting that it be built near the back of the house, instead of down near the rest of the Union garrison's quarters by the river."
"Why did he run?” asked Lee. “Why didn't he help fight?"
"I can't say for sure, but maybe it was that Colonel Murchison wouldn't allow the Captain to wear his sword in the pest house. Technically the war was over. So I imagine he was running to retrieve it. It would appear the Captain either didn't run all too fast, or the Irish man was quite a furious fighter, as just as Limpkins arrived at his cabin door, the Irishman, who'd finished off the last of the soldiers, caught up to him."
"I bet that Yankee got himself a royal butt kickin',” Ted piped up eagerly.
"Yankee?” Uncle Ed immediately came back. “Yankee? Hell, you're from Pittsburg."
"Give me a break,” Ted replied. “You know what I mean."
"Well, I'm telling you, if someone tried that with one of my little girls...” Uncle Ed drove his fist into his hand with a slap, causing Charlene to squirm. “I know I sure would have wanted to get a piece of that guy."
"All of you two beer hound's bravado aside,” Miss Laura continued smugly, “Though Limpkins may have looked like death, he wasn't as frail as he seemed. Or maybe the Irishman was a little spent after just taking on five men, I don't know. But for a moment, it was a balanced exchange with the Captain holding his own. As the regrouped soldiers poured out of the building, accompanied by a few officers and Colonel Murchison who'd been upstairs in a meeting, they saw Limpkins bite the man, ripping off his ear. With a massive blow, the Irishman then knocked Limpkins through the front door of his cabin, splintering the wood and apparently dislodging the Captain's glass eye. When the soldiers, with the obese Colonel Murchison trailing the pack, burst in, they found the Irishman with Captain Limpkin's sword through his chest, and Limpkins dead on the floor with a broken neck."
"For real?” Lee asked.
Miss Laura nodded. “For real."
Ted, Uncle Ed and Lee all began to speak at once.
Evil Heights, Book II: Monster in the House Page 28