The Plague Doctor

by E. Joan Sims

  At one time there was speculation in town that something terrible had occurred in one of the upstairs bedrooms—something so terrible, it was rumored, that the people who lived there wanted to erase the very space in which it happened. I did know that the story was common knowledge around town. Chief Joiner would believe that the only exits from the house on Meadowdale Farm were on the ground floor. He didn’t know what Velvet and I had discovered one summer night over thirty years ago.

  “How do we get on the roof, Mom?”

  “Aha! I thought you had done this before?”

  “I always used a ladder.”

  “That’s cheating,” I chuckled. “Look around you,” I said as we climbed to the top of the stairs. “What do you see?”

  She started to turn on the flashlight, but I stopped her just in time. The logs were less insulated up here. Chinks of mud and limestone had fallen out over the last one hundred and fifty years, and even though the outside was covered with wood siding, I was afraid the light might shine through in places to give us away.

  “Ugh, I can’t see a thing, but I just walked thorough a spider web.”

  “Stand still a moment and let your eyes adjust to the dark.”

  We stood side by side in the big dark hallway of the old house. Up here with the old logs exposed, it was easier to imagine what it might have been like to live in a log cabin. Of course, this was a monster of a log house. Some of the older folks in town swore it used to be a way station for travelers on the trail to the Mississippi and further west. Others claimed that it had been the frontier residence of a wealthy merchant from Chicago who came out here for his health and had the bad luck to die the first winter. He left the house, they said, to his three children, who each refused to give their share to the others. All three had lived here together until they died of old age. The story was told that they died within days of each other after almost sixty years of spiteful, jealous sibling rivalry.

  “This place gives me the spooks!” exclaimed Cassie. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

  “Light. Look for the moonlight. That’s the way out.”

  I felt her turn around in the dark and peer in all the corners.

  “There’s no…oh wait, the chimney! You climbed out the chimney!”

  I grinned in the dark and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go!”

  The last time I had climbed up the big brick chimney, I was only fourteen years old. I was considerably larger in width and length now than I’d been then, and suddenly I wasn’t sure I could make it. It would be extremely embarrassing to have to call the fire department to come and pluck me out like a cork from a wine bottle.

  “Uhhffff!”

  “Uhhfff, is right! Quit knocking soot down in my face, Mom!”

  “Shhhhh!”

  I paused to get my breath and wipe the sweat from my eyes.

  “I told you to wait until I was up and out before you started climbing. We’re not even sure this can be done. It’s bad enough for one of us to get stuck. The two of us crammed in here like sardines would make us the laughingstock of Rowan Springs for the next three generations.”

  “Then you should have let me go first,” she complained. “I’d rather be stuck in this dirty chimney with you than wait alone in that creepy old attic.”

  I looked up and saw that by some miracle I was almost at the top. I felt around for another purchase in the rough handmade brick as I called softly down to my daughter.

  “Hey, guess what? We’re almost there.”

  In just a few more minutes, we had both made it up and out of the chimney. We lay spread-eagled on the warm shingles and breathed deeply of the cool fresh air. I looked up at the harvest moon.

  “Wow! It’s beautiful!” whispered Cassie. “It looks so much bigger up here.”

  “I thought you had been up here before?”

  “No, Mom, not this far up. I was just trying to get your goat. You and Aunty Vel are the only ones who ever did this at night before. Now I can see why you did.”

  She rose up and looked down into the yard. “It’s like the dreams I used to have of flying!” she said softly. “I feel so free.”

  “Let’s hope we stay that way. Come on, follow me. And be as quiet as a mouse.”

  We crept over the rooftop in our stocking feet until we reached the place where the original log structure ended and the modern renovation began. Here the roof was flatter and easier to traverse. That’s when I slipped.

  My ankle turned under me as I was hurrying along the roof over the dining room. Fortunately I was out of sight of anyone down below when I fell and rolled head over heels until I fetched up against the flue over the kitchen stove.

  “Mom? Are you all right?” whispered Cassie urgently.

  For a moment I couldn’t answer. The breath was knocked out of me. And then I heard voices down below. Mother and Horatio had decided to entertain the law on the back porch.

  “Damn!” I said under my breath. But I forgot that Cassie had bionic ears.

  “What?”

  “Shhhh!”

  I crawled back up the roof and pulled her along behind me until we reached the old part of the house again. We huddled down next to the chimney while I explained our problem.

  “I forgot to tell Mother and Horatio to take the food out front. It’s not their fault. I didn’t explain our escape route. I meant for us to climb down to the lower level, hang off the side porch roof, and jump off into my night garden. But if we did that we’d be clearly visible to anyone sitting on the back porch. Now what do we do?”

  “We do what I used to do,” she laughed.

  “What’s that?”

  “Climb down the tree next to my bedroom.”

  “Gosh, I never thought of that! Clever child, Cassie!”

  “Follow me, Mom.”

  Unlike the chimney, Cassie’s tree had grown in the last few years. The limbs reached up to the exact height of the second story roof. We took a moment to slip on our sneakers and then stepped off the roof into the protective canopy of leaves. We descended slowly and carefully until we had almost reached the bottom.

  “Head for the orchard when you reach the ground,” I whispered. “We can hide under the trees until we get to the beginning of the lane where the undergrowth is still thick and bushy. They’ll never see us from the house.”

  We jumped down from the lowest tree limb and hugged the trunk for a minute to make sure no one was watching. Cassie went running toward the orchard, and I followed close behind. We paused to catch our breath under the cherry tree, then waited for the moon to go behind a cloud before we zigzagged across the orchard to the entrance of the lane.

  “We did it!” laughed Cassie as she collapsed against me. We both fell down in a heap on a bed of leaves.

  “I can’t believe it worked.”

  “Of course it worked, Mom! It was a great idea. Are you sure Leonard didn’t help?”

  I grinned. “Maybe just a little bit.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  We were almost an hour ahead of schedule, but Cassie was anxious to see Ethan, so we didn’t waste a minute while we were on the flat even ground of the lane—we ran. We would have to be more careful crossing the field to reach the lake where we were supposed to meet him. The hay was almost waist high, and the ground was soft and loamy. Moles and groundhogs burrowed for hundreds of feet around the shore line. It would be easy to step into a hole in the dark and break an ankle.

  Still, it was a beautiful night. The sky was clear with only a few fleeting clouds across the moon. I could even see the fuzzy white edge of the Milky Way as it reached across the heavens. The wind rustled softly through the leaves and the tall grass and carried the scent of wild honeysuckle from the vines along the fencerows. We started nervously as a hoot owl called to his mate from the top of the hickory nut tree on the hill, and then laughed together as we walked on.

  “Gosh, I wish we had a tent. We could bring it back here and camp out.”

 
; “Not me!”

  “Mom! You used to go camping with me two or three times a year when I was a Girl Scout in San Romero. I thought you loved it. You always had fun.”

  “I’m glad you thought so. That was the whole point. I did it so you could do it.

  We were pretty short on leaders. Not many pampered Latin mothers wanted to take off their high heels and risk snake bite and God knows what in the jungle. I wanted you to have the experience. And we did see some pretty neat things. Remember the anaconda?”

  “Wow, do I!”

  “Shhhhh, did you hear something?”

  As I hunkered down in the tall grass, I found myself wishing we had taken the long way around the edge of the field instead of walking across the middle. In the bright moonlight we were sitting ducks for anyone who might be watching.

  “Get down,” I urged. “Let’s crawl the rest of the way.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit silly? I didn’t hear anything, but if somebody is out there they saw us a long time ago when we started across the field. Crawling on our hands and knees through this grass isn’t going to get us anything but chiggers and ticks.”

  “Oh, well,” I sighed as I stood up. “I guess you’re right. Leonard is going to have to get a lot better at this clandestine nighttime stuff.”

  “We’ve done pretty good up until now, Mom.”

  She looked at her watch. She had a Timex with a dial that glowed like a beacon in the dark.

  “It’s only ten minutes till one-thirty.”

  I laughed. Cassie had always told time that way. It was almost a direct translation from the Spanish.

  We reached the edge of the field and walked along the fence for about two hundred feet until we came to a place where we could crawl under without snagging our clothes.

  Cassie led the way as we crept through the underbrush of thicket that we used to call the jungle. My father had built a tree house here for Velvet and me when we were children. He had not used any nails. His building supplies were the vines and limbs of sassafras and young willow that grew near the lake. When we played here every day I knew this wild area like the back of my hand. My hand was a lot bigger now. Cassie was closer to childhood, and she used to play over here, too. I let her take the lead.

  Pounding footsteps echoed the heart-shaking sound in my chest as we surprised two deer drinking at the water’s edge. We held on to each other for a minute in fear.

  “Whew! Bambi almost ran over me!” I gasped.

  “Yeah,” laughed Cass. “That would be a switch—like man bites dog.”

  “There’s the big cedar tree up on the hill. Isn’t that where we’re supposed to meet Ethan?”

  “Where I’m supposed to meet Ethan, Mom.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Don’t get funny on me now, please, Mom. Ethan doesn’t know you’re coming. He asked me to meet him alone.”

  “Cassie, I can’t allow you to…”

  “Mom, I have to see him alone first,” she insisted. “I promise I’ll call you after I explain everything. It won’t take long.”

  “Okay,” I agreed grudgingly. “But don’t call, whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you? You…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she laughed softly. “Henry Bogart and all that old movie stuff.”

  “Humphrey,” I corrected. “Be careful!”

  I squatted down next to a big fallen tree stump and watched as she picked her way around the shore of the lake. As more clouds covered the moon it got harder and harder to see her tall, slender figure. After a while I lost sight of her altogether.

  I tried to read the fading dial on my watch and cursed at it for its lack of brightness.

  “Damn Rolex! Damn attempt at conspicuous consumption. I’m getting a Timex like Cassie’s.”

  But I knew I never would. Rafe had given me this watch on our first anniversary. It would be buried with me.

  My knees were getting stiff, so I struggled up and moved over to sit on a stump. I was almost past caring whether Joiner or his men were watching us. This was probably one of the stupider things I had ever done. My beloved daughter was somewhere on the other side of the lake in the arms of a suspected rapist and murderer, and I had allowed it. Hell! I had engineered it. What kind of mother was I? Damn! Why didn’t she whistle?

  And then I heard it—sweet and pure over the little lapping sounds of the water against the shore. My baby was fine and dandy!

  My knees creaked and popped as I pushed myself off the log and set out across the rough path around the lake. In places, the underbrush grew out past the water’s edge, and my feet slipped in wet mud and algae. My toes grew numb as my sneakers filled with cold water. The wind picked up, and I shivered as it blew across the lake and found the moth holes in my sweater. I wished for a jacket and wondered if Cassie needed one, too.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” I mumbled crossly. “Sneaking around in the dead of night, hummpff.” And then I laughed, “Henry Bogart!”

  Poor little Cassie knew so much, but she was definitely missing some important facts of popular North American folk culture. Someday we would have an old movie marathon. I would find all of the great oldies, The Thin Man, To Have and To Have Not, Frankenstein. She had seen Casablanca, I was almost sure. But, The Uninvited, now there was a scary…

  I heard the whistle again. It was much closer. I pulled my right shoe out of the mud and grimaced in disgust. I hated being uncomfortable, and I was rapidly reaching that stage. I was cold and wet and…The high-pitched scream finished it off for me. Now I could add “scared” to my list.

  “Cassie, I’m coming!” I shouted, as I stumbled the rest of the way around the lake.

  The big old cedar tree stood tall and dark against the white face of the moon. It was up on a hill overlooking the rocky spillway where the lake overflowed into a creek below.

  As I got closer, I could see Ethan sitting at the base of the cedar. He was leaning back against the trunk with his legs stretched out in front of him. His arms hung limply from his upper body, and his head sagged on his chest. He looked like a discarded rag doll. Alarmed, I ran up the hill and fell on my knees in front of him gasping for breath. I raised my head as I struggled to breathe and saw the white face and pale bald pate. It wasn’t Ethan after all. It was Porky Pig. And he was dead, dead, shot in the head.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  My mind went all fuzzy for a moment. I sat down hard on the cold damp ground. There was something very important I had to do, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was. And then clarity returned and with it the overwhelming fear that something really, really, terrible had happened to Cassie.

  I struggled to get up, but a cramp in my thigh held me down. I kneaded the muscle as hard as I could to restore the circulation and winced as the pain ebbed and flowed. At least I could still feel pain, I thought, as I examined Porky’s body while I waited for the cramp to subside. He was wearing jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, and he was barefoot. That was odd, I thought, especially since the bottoms of his feet were white and clean.

  After a minute or two, the cramping pain degenerated into a burning ache. I crawled awkwardly to the bottom of the big tree. I couldn’t bring myself to touch the body, but I wanted to see the wound in the middle of his forehead. It was odd—not round and circular like a bullet hole—but more like an “x” with only one leg.

  “It’s from an arrow.”

  The deep voice scared the shit out of me. I scrambled wildly, flailing my arms and one good leg as I tried to get up and run. A heavy body descended on mine and a big rough hand covered my mouth.

  “Don’t scream,” the man whispered harshly. “We’re expecting a visitor. Mustn’t frighten him away.”

  I briefly struggled against the superior strength, then sagged back in exhaustion against his chest. Metal buttons from his overalls poked through my sweater and scratched the tender skin under my shoulders.

  “Barry!” I squeaked through his fingers.
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  I felt my own body relax against his big strong one in relief. Thank God! Sometimes a woman, even an independent woman like me, just really needs a big strong man. I figured this was one of those times. I tried to turn in his arms.

  “Be still!” He whispered angrily.

  I was confused. He was supposed to save me and Cassie. But how could he do that if I couldn’t tell him that she was in danger—that I had heard her scream?

  The big hand tightened painfully over my lips. I could smell him now. His clothes held the fetid odor of old perspiration. I smelled unwashed soil and something else, the coppery stench of blood. I gagged. My stomach heaved as I came to the distinct realization that Barry wasn’t here to rescue me and Cassie after all. He was the one we needed to be rescued from!

  He held me so closely that I could feel his muscles tighten with impatience. His hot breath filled my ear as he swore softly.

  “Damnation, where is that skinny bastard?”

  Ethan! He was waiting for Ethan. Suddenly I was filled with an overwhelming curiosity. Amazingly enough, it gave me the strength I needed. There was no way I was going to lie here like a weak whinny wisp and maybe even die before I found out just what was going on. And where was Cassie? That last thought gave me the strength I needed for action. Especially since it came at a moment when Barry relaxed his grip just for a second.

  I whipped my body like an eel on the end of a fishing line. With my free hand I pulled off my wet muddy sneaker and slammed it hard across the hand over my face. At the same time I kicked him in the crotch with all of my might. He gasped loudly in pain and let go of me. I jumped up and stomped him viciously in the face with my other muddy sneaker. Then I took off running.

  He was right behind me. I heard him crashing through the thicket like an angry bull—snorting and cursing. He must have decided catching me was more important than lying silently in wait for Ethan. I ran.