Down to a Soundless Sea

by Thomas Steinbeck

  In the end it hardly mattered. The Chinese always paid top prices, bowed politely, thanked Captain Lodge for his efforts, and never made a fuss. Lodge seized on these unadorned courtesies as high praise for a plainspoken fisherman with no home save his boat.

  Plain he may have been, but Chapel Lodge lived a long, enterprising, and cheerful life. He died in his sleep aboard his last boat, the Dulce Fortuna, at the venerable age of eighty-six; his faithful old bilge cat, Mr. Pepper, stayed with him until the end. It was agreed by all that Captain Lodge passed away gracefully at home and in the very best of company.

  AN UNBECOMING GRACE

  Doc Roberts was a respected medical man and good friend to almost everybody on the Monterey coast. In one sense it might even have been said that he was indispensable, being the only physician willing to ride the long and dangerous coastal mountain circuit to care for his patients. His perseverance and dedication were well regarded by all who knew him, and even crazy old man Clarke, who wasn’t the least bit crazy, said Doc Roberts had the sharpest aptitude for the truth of any man he had ever met. That comment passed for something rare and unique, coming as it did from a man who went to great lengths to camouflage his own extensive scholastic credentials under the guise of partial but harmless derangement.

  The doctor was a strongly built specimen with orderly, handsome features and a generous expression, a look that inspired instant confidence and respect in strangers. His dark hair and full mustache were set in fine proportions. His narrow, pale eyes habitually cast an expression of warm concentration and interest. His handsome and pleasant features, when crowned with a physician’s social status, had enticed many a young woman to pass her hours in hopeful speculation.

  Inventive feminine ploys had not gone unnoticed by the intended victim, so Doc forestalled all future attempts in that vein by sending for his young fiancée and marrying her at once. This one act did wonders for his respectability in Monterey. A family man of sober habits could be trusted not to desert his responsibilities to his patients. At least that was the model supposition of the day.

  After six years of practice, from Monterey to the Big Sur, Doc Roberts had accumulated an inestimable treasure of gratitude, loyalty, and respect. In fact, Doc’s rounds actually carried him from Santa Cruz in the north to the jagged mountains of the Big Sur in the south. But it was always in the heart of the Big Sur that he was happiest. If there was a trail—and if his horse, Daisy, didn’t throw a shoe, refuse the hitch, or pretend to go lame—Doc Roberts would make his way to the sufferer without fail. His favorite mode of transport, if the roads were decent and the weather marginally dry, was his two-wheeled cart.

  Doc’s cart was a hybrid vehicle of his own design and fabrication. Because he was not particularly skilled in simple carpentry, Doc’s rig presented a sadly slapdash appearance. He had purchased the frame, axle, and wheels from John Gilkey and had proceeded to build a crude pine box on top of the frame. No two boards matched; all were crudely nailed; and when the wood had fully dried, all the knots fell out, leaving holes everywhere. Doc said it made for better drainage in the rain.

  Tom Doud once witnessed Daisy kick up a fit and take on a bit mulish while Doc struggled in vain to maneuver the wary animal into her hitch. Tom Doud was an earnest and forth-right rancher who took the opportunity to express the opinion that no self-respecting four-legged beast, regardless of species, would want to be seen near Doc’s cart, much less be caught pulling it anywhere.

  He told Doc to his face that his cart was an eyesore, more fitted to the transport of plague victims than the conveyance of a successful doctor. As far as he was concerned, it was no wonder the poor animal wanted nothing to do with the bargain. The humiliated creature shivered and hung its head with shame at the prospect.

  Tom laughed and said, “Your mare may be only a simple dumb beast, Doctor, but she’s not downright stupid.” This insight didn’t particularly amuse Doc Roberts at the time, but Tom Doud almost soiled his pants laughing at his own quip. Tom told the story affectionately for years. Secretly, Doc was forced to admit to himself that Daisy much preferred the saddle to the hitch, but the cart carried more supplies and there was room to convey a serious patient to the little hospital in Monterey if necessary. So, as far as Doc Roberts was concerned, Daisy would eventually have to bow to public service when required, just as he did.

  In those rugged days the Monterey coast shouldered more than its fair allotment of scoundrels, but even among this callous fraternity there was one character who was rigorously shunned, even by the rest of the roguish brotherhood. He was a perfidious and miserly old rancher who ran a pathetic spread out of a dilapidated house atop a promontory then known as Grace Point. His lair was approximately fifteen miles south of the Big Sur River. Everyone agreed that the old man’s livestock (cattle, horses, pigs, and chickens) were of the most deplorable sort and condition. These sad creatures looked as though they longed for immediate dispatch from the miseries of this world in favor of the relative peace and tranquility of the smokehouse, tannery, and bone mill.

  The malevolent old man had a name, but nobody chose to use it. Everyone referred to him, when at all necessary, as “the old Stoat.” This discerning appellation not only characterized his weasel-like attributes, but also alluded to his controversial acquisition of a young bride of eighteen. The girl was a shy, penurious child from the streets of King City with little understanding of the world.

  Rumor had it that the Stoat treated her unmercifully and did everything in his power to break her simple spirit. The Stoat was also widely known for his liberal use of the foulest language possible. It was said that he savored and unleashed his sharpest thorns on his child bride, habitually reducing her to defenseless tears. These anecdotes were commonly acknowledged by his neighbors, so it would not seem strange that almost everyone found something detestable in the Stoat’s character. In fact, it might have been fair to assume that most people would have celebrated his timely reunion with the primordial dust from which he sprang.

  Doc Roberts was usually too preoccupied with his own business to affect much interest in gossip, so he was only marginally prepared with intelligence when one day he found himself summoned to the side of the crusty old rancher to treat a badly broken leg.

  Young Ned Murray had brought word of the accident when he came into town for supplies, so Doc Roberts determined to take his cart in case the old man required surgical attention in Monterey. The doctor was not one for unnecessary amputations.

  Having assembled the requisite medical supplies, Doc hitched up Daisy and made his way south. Since Daisy knew the way down the old coast road without meddlesome interference, Doc secured occasional opportunities to read his medical journals, eat sandwiches, or drink coffee without reference to his course. He had often napped in the back of his cart in full confidence of Daisy’s discretion.

  The doctor sometimes stopped to greet a friend or patient on the road, but more often than not, the route was barren of incidental traffic. The occasional tinker or peddler sometimes camped by the way, and these dusty gentlemen of the road always received a civil greeting and a few moments’ conversation from the doctor. He had discovered that commercial travelers often held keys to all manner of useful intelligence.

  About a half mile north of the western cutoff to the Stoat’s homestead, Doc Roberts came across just such a fellow. Mr. Elysium Shellworth Grey, as he styled himself, was a traveling vendor of patent medicines and numerous varieties of everyday pharmacopoeia. A sign on his highly decorated box wagon announced the vending of trusses, braces, crutches, and prosthetic devices at reasonable cost.

  The duster-clad Mr. Grey was in the process of greasing a troublesome axle when Doc Roberts pulled up with an amiable greeting. A few moments’ pleasantries revealed that the peddler had just come from the doctor’s destination.

  Mr. Grey shook his head slowly and rolled his eyes to heaven. “That crusty old bastard is a real piece of work and no mistake. I could have saved
myself the trouble of visiting the bloody old pike. They said up at Notley’s Landing that a rancher had broken his leg. I thought it would be a kindness to go out of my way to see if I could be of service. I’m not a doctor you understand, but I do dispense a very fine tincture of laudanum that would have alleviated his pain until medical services could be rendered.”

  Mr. Grey wormed the wheel back onto the greased axle while he talked. The effort made him grunt by way of punctuation. “You should have heard the man swear and scream at the audacity of my uninvited visit. After calling me every name he could remember, he shouted that a real doctor would be on his way, and that he would tolerate no traveling villains on his place. The old reprobate possesses the vocabulary of a ship-bound bosun. I do assure you I’ve never heard the likes of such language from anyone who wasn’t waiting to be hanged. Then the old heathen turned his extraordinary venom on this young girl. I was dumbstruck to discover the wretched creature was the ogre’s wife. The poor thing just shuddered and wept like a whipped spaniel. Pretty little waif too. Sad to see her so ill used. Well, not content to abuse the child, he rounded back on me with lewd accusations indicting my presence as having something to do with his child bride. I swear I never laid eyes on the youngster before in my life. That evil old crow is crazy, I’d bet my life on it, but he’s falling off his perch and that’s no mistake. Then suddenly the antique bushwhacker pulls a horse pistol from under his pillow and threatens to kill me if my wagon isn’t rolling out of his yard in ten seconds. I decided not to test the old man’s resolve in the matter. I bid him a brief farewell and beat a hasty and thankfully bloodless retreat. I don’t imagine many people of his acquaintance are that lucky. His broken leg might have slowed him down a bit, but I’m grateful to the Almighty all the same. So, are you the doc the old scoundrel is waiting on?”

  Doc Roberts smiled, pushed back his hat, and wiped the grit from his face with a new bandanna. “Yes, and it’s been a long pull for the two of us,” he said, indicating Daisy’s hangdog disposition. “The patient may happily mend his own damn leg for the price of a casual insult, but sometimes acute suffering may cause a being to act in a most outrageous fashion. One must refrain from sudden judgments in my line of work.”

  Doc Roberts touched his hat in farewell and snapped the reins, but something came to mind and he halted to ask the peddler a question. “I believe you mentioned that you carry a reputable tincture of laudanum. Were you serious? I also stand in need of a pint bottle of dark rum, a small bottle of vanilla extract, and oil of cloves.”

  The thought of making a sale after his humiliating retreat animated Mr. Grey as nothing else could. He left the hub bolt, wiped his greasy hands on a rag, and jumped into the back of his wagon.

  Doc Roberts listened as the man rummaged through his stock in search of the required items. Doc was amused to hear the peddler talk to himself while he did so. After two minutes Mr. Grey emerged clutching the exact items requested. He was genuinely pleased to have been of some profitable service, perhaps the last of the day.

  Because the doctor was obviously a professional man with influence, Mr. Grey thought it prudent to discount market value for his wares in hopes the doctor might return the kindness one day. Doc Roberts paid, stowed the bottles in the cart, waved good-bye, and drove on south.

  The turnout to the Stoat’s ranch was framed by a warped gate that swung in the wind. It made forlorn sounds on its dying, rusty hinges. A few hundred feet down the overgrown road, Doc’s cart came to a deep depression that had once been a wide streambed centuries before. From this vantage point Doc could see neither the high road nor the house and he, in turn, could not be seen. Here Doc Roberts halted Daisy and made his preparations. From a carpetbag, he extracted a large, empty medicine bottle that still sported a cryptic medical label. He always carried such items to hold fluid samples or dispense medication. Into the bottle Doc poured a measured amount of laudanum, a healthy dash of vanilla extract, and a few drops of clove oil to give the blend a medicinal bite. Lastly he added a quarter pint of the dark rum. He recorked the concoction, shook it twice, and placed it in his medical bag. Once satisfied, he continued the short quarter mile to the house.

  Daisy appeared to confront the ramshackle buildings with the same sense of trepidation that Doc Roberts was presently feeling. Emotionally unstable patients often made simple doctoring a precarious endeavor. Doc Roberts steeled himself against the darker possibilities and slowed Daisy’s pace.

  There was little to differentiate the barn from the house except windows. In fact, all the outbuildings wore a shabby weatherworn pallor that gave the whole vista an air of ceaseless desiccation. One sensed the salted winds and sea mists would soon erode the bleached boards and shingles into rotting splinters. It had probably looked that way for years.

  Doc guided his cart to the front of the house and called out his own name by way of introduction. He waited without dismounting and then called out again. After a few moments the door opened and a bedraggled girl stepped out on the porch with her arms crossed guardedly across her chest. She stared up at Doc Roberts with a curious expression of childlike expectation.

  Doc asked the doe-eyed girl if an injured man lay within, a man with a broken leg. He found it difficult to believe that this simple child could be anyone’s wife. The girl nodded without speaking and gestured toward the open door. Doc stepped down, unloaded his bags from the cart, and unhitched Daisy from her traces. The mare pranced away from the cart rails with a nervous skip, and Doc led her to the water trough before securing her halter to the porch rail.

  The girl had placed the doctor’s things within the door and waited for his return. As he approached, Doc Roberts took a chill that made him shiver, as though he were leaving a world of warmth for a realm of frosts. He hefted his Gladstone and allowed the girl to lead him to a fetid bedroom that occupied the far end of the dilapidated house.

  The wild-looking old man lay fully clothed in a stained sweater and filthy, patched overalls. He must have lain that way for days. He sweated upon an ancient mattress that sagged in the straps of a rust-chipped iron bed frame. Whatever his animated outbursts might have been with Mr. Grey, the old rancher was now quiet and obviously suffering from a level of exhaustion only chronic agony can induce.

  As Doc approached, the old man’s eyes flinched and narrowed suspiciously in his direction. A hooded prospect of misgiving clouded his brow, but the pain in the man’s leg was the greater distraction, and he surrendered to it with a wincing groan.

  Dr. Roberts introduced himself formally and set his bag on a rickety table placed by the bed. The old rancher’s expression tightened with consternation, but he nodded his rawboned head in acknowledgment and then inclined it toward a bloody patch of blanket that covered his right leg. Doc Roberts lifted away the soiled covering to reveal a blood-soaked and putrid pant leg. He opened his medical bag and removed a folding instrument case. From this he withdrew surgical shears to cut away the clotted fabric. As Doc had expected from the amount of blood, the broken bone had penetrated the skin badly, and it would prove no easy task to reset the leg. The shock alone could kill a man of his years and dissipated constitution. The old man propped himself up on his elbows, but Dr. Roberts ordered him to lie back and save what little strength he had. It was obvious to the doctor that his patient was incapable of untroubled cooperation. Doc hoped the rancher’s young wife would not prove helpless as well.

  Doc reached into his Gladstone and took out the concocted medicine bottle. He uncorked the stopper and handed the preparation to the old man with instructions to drink as much as he liked. It would help kill the pain and give some relief before the leg was treated. The old pike sniffed the bottle skeptically, but his eyes widened at the sweet alcoholic aroma and he took a swig.

  One sip lightened the old man’s anxious expression. He next took a long gurgling pull on the bottle and lay back on his greasy pillow with a sigh of long-sought relief.

  Doc Roberts announced that he would se
e to his horse and return in a few minutes when the medicine had taken effect. Turning to the girl standing in the door, he gave instructions to have a generous kettle of clean water boiled immediately. With that he left to attend to Daisy’s needs.

  Doc retrieved a clean canvas bucket from his cart and filled it with sweet oats. This he lashed to the hitching post for the mare’s convenience. He curried Daisy with a stiff brush while she ate and covered the grateful animal with a stable blanket against the damp sea air before returning to the house.

  After Doc Roberts had washed up and returned to his patient he found the old man almost comatose. He had consumed half the bottle of adulterated rum and lay happily insensate on his rat’s nest of a mattress. Doc summoned the rancher’s wife to bring the water and assist in other small matters. When he had sheared off the pant leg, Doc washed the ugly wound thoroughly and painted the whole area with a malodorous disinfectant that stained the skin an unattractive ocher. Then Doc Roberts had the apprehensive child bride secure the patient’s right hip with heavy pressure while Doc pulled and adjusted the limb in a painfully prolonged attempt to set the withered leg properly. The problem of resetting was made more complex by the irregular nature of the break.

  Luckily the old rancher’s only response to these excruciating manipulations was an occasional stupefied groan. The patient’s opiated state allowed a slight margin of error in the matter of shock, but Doc admonished the girl to see that her husband received plenty of clean water to drink at all times.

  After suturing part of the muscle with catgut, Doc Roberts closed the wound with more gut, disinfected it again, and applied a clean bandage. With the girl’s hesitant assistance Doc managed to lace up the broken limb in a long, heavy-canvas and whalebone-reinforced splint. This device had been artfully manufactured by a company that made ladies’ corsets, and it retained many similarities in the manner of support and lacing.