“Well, I guess you’re going to be the next one lying on my table, big fellow.” Doctor Richardson smiled at Franklin, and then looked down at Brendan languishing on the examination table. It was late in the day when Franklin and Lyle came to check on Brendan, who slept the night in Richardson’s office after having his leg set and remained unconscious most of the morning.
“But I’m not in pain, Doc,” Franklin said. “I do get this itchy rash that pops up—”
“No, son, I was merely commenting that your two friends have already—”
“Don’t bother, Doc.” Lyle stopped the nonsense with a raised voice. “It’s a lost cause.”
“I see.” Richardson’s fading smile conveyed pity for the thickheaded man. “As for Brendan here, how are you feeling?”
“More morphine.” Brendan tilted his head up to look at his bum limb. The doc had cut off his right pant leg to tend to the bone.
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“More morphine means I’m feeling pain, Doc. More morphine. Please.”
“He gonna be able to walk again, Doc?” Lyle eyed the wooden splint secured to Brendan’s leg with leather straps.
“Your friend should count himself lucky that the bone didn’t cut through the skin. That would mean possible infection, meaning possibly becoming gangrenous, meaning I might have to go into this drawer.” Richardson slid open a drawer near the base of a medicine cabinet and pulled out a bone saw. “But I don’t think that will be necessary here. I was able to pull and push the tibia in place—or what I believe to be in place—rather cleanly.”
“I don’t remember that part,” Brendan said to the ceiling.
“That’s because of the chloroform, and be thankful for it.”
“I am, and I’ll be thankful for some more morphine. Shoot me up.”
Richardson, exasperated, went to a medicine cabinet and prepared an injection of morphine while apprising the others of Brendan’s condition. “I think I can cast your leg—which I believe I’ll rather enjoy. I’ve not had a chance to use plaster of Paris yet on a human. Brendan qualifies.”
Richardson looked at the full syringe and demurred. “I’m not certain you need this, Brendan. You’ve had quite enough. I simply think you like the way this makes you feel. You’re not the first or last man to get addicted to morphine, and I’m not going to help facilitate that process. Much as I know you’ll object, I’ll hold off on this unless and until I’m convinced you’re in pain.”
Richardson stuck the needle into a small piece of cork and laid it on a mobile medical tray well out Brendan’s reach on the far side of the room.
“I just need to buy some linen from the mercantile to cut into strips before the place closes,” Richardson said. “But I will not do that until one of the sheriff’s men arrives to keep an eye on Brendan while I’m out.”
“Wait a sec, Doc.” Lyle’s eyes zigzagged around the room, revealing to Richardson that was the last thing Lyle wanted. “Brendan sure as hell ain’t under arrest like that guy that got hung, so what gives?”
“You want the unvarnished truth? I don’t trust you and your friend there to mind my rapidly depleting reserves of morphine any more than I trust Brendan.”
“Like I said, Doc, I ain’t in any pain,” Franklin said.
Richardson looked at him in astonishment while speaking to Lyle.
“Surely you would agree that a man in my position, having addressed injuries you and Brendan sustained during what any reasonably intelligent person would presume to be the commission of multiple crimes, would be wise not to leave you in the unguarded presence of medicines whose names you likely cannot even pronounce, much less understand what they would do to you if improperly ingested.”
Lyle rolled his eyes—whatever.
“And to answer your question,” Richardson continued. “Brendan might have a limp by the time I cut him out of his cast, but that’s much preferable to a stump. Yes, he will walk again, but not for a little while. He’ll be on crutches, which I imagine will limit his extracurricular activities.” Richardson retrieved a pair of crutches from a walk-in supply closet and tilted them again the wall next to Brendan, and said, “You can use these when I’m done with you, but only temporarily. You’ll have to buy—rather, I suspect Mister Diggs will have to buy you a pair of your own once you get used to them.”
Lyle crafted a retort the moment he realized the doctor considered him less than a reprobate, but a knock on the examination room door interrupted his thought.
“Come.”
Deputy Noah Chandler entered and assessed the room, immediately disliking all but one of its inhabitants.
“Hi, Doc. Sheriff Clement said you needed someone to watch over who I suppose is lying on that table there.”
Richardson explained why he needed to leave.
Lyle ambled past the doctor and deputy and stood over Brendan, whispering, “I don’t know what the hell happened out there but don’t say a thing.”
“It’d make more sense coming from me now, drugged as I am.” Brendan’s eyes widened and his teeth chattered. “You wouldn’t believe—”
“Save it.” Lyle, as clandestinely as he could, nodded toward Noah.
“Just make sure they keep their hands to themselves,” Richardson reminded Noah as he left.
Noah leaned against the closed door and folded his arms. He looked at Lyle, then to Franklin, and finally Brendan.
“It’s been a little while since we last spoke, boys. So, what have we been up to?”
“Doc, you sound different,” Brendan said. “You get my morphine yet?”
“Either he’s playing dumb or he’s not lucid enough to explain to me how he broke his leg,” Noah said. “So which is it?” He directed his query to Brendan, who didn’t answer.
“Very well.” Noah extended his arms as if to welcome what he knew would be an inane explanation. “How about it, fellas? How’d your friend wind up back in the doctor’s good graces?”
“He was bird-watching,” Franklin blurted.
“Goddammit, Franklin,” Lyle hissed.
“No! He’s right.” Brendan tried sitting up but winced and reclined when he felt pain. “I was bird-watching and slipped outta the tree I was in—stupid me. I ain’t lying.”
“That so? Which tree? Where did you go to watch our fine feathered friends?”
“I’m sorry, I forgot who you are, Deputy”—Brendan drew out the last syllable get the name.
“It’s Deputy Chandler,” Lyle answered. “Deputy Noah Chandler. We’ve met him before, Brendan.”
Noah paid the taunt no mind. “Of course we have. Doc Richardson plucked a bullet from your butt.”
“A bullet? Right, a bullet,” Lyle said teasingly. “That’s when we met.”
Noah disregarded him and focused on Brendan. “Now, this tree you were perched in. Where was it?”
“Ain’t none of your damned business where it was, Noah,” Lyle said. “Watching birds ain’t illegal last I checked.”
“If anything they should be admired for their beauty—”
“Shut up, Franklin!” Lyle barked and glared at Noah. “Brendan doesn’t have to tell you a goddamn thing. Right, Brendan?”
“I sure don’t.” Brendan stared out the newly installed window and its frame—a rush job completed by the town’s carpenter—realizing there’d be no further purpose in conversing with the deputy.
“Since when did you become your friend’s mouthpiece?” Noah said to Lyle.
“Since you began poking your snout into our business. I believe the doc asked you to make sure we didn’t steal anything. Well, we ain’t. Our friend here had an accident and we’re checking on him like good friends do. That’s why we’re here. Or was there another murder last night that we’re somehow suspected of committing?”
“Who ever said I suspected you of murdering anyone?”
“I ain’t fuckin’ stupid,” Lyle said. “All the shit going on ’round here the last week or so? The way you questioned us the other day? But I don’t blame you. Gotta be diligent. Now, were any other freedmen or Klansmen or soldiers butchered last night?”
“No, all was quiet.”
“Happy to hear it. We’re done talking to you.”
Several tense minutes of silence passed before Richardson knocked on the door, allowing Noah time to move out of the way. He entered carrying a box with, among other items, linen bed sheets destined for the scissors.
“These boys behave themselves?”
“Yeah, Doc. A little childish, but what would you expect?” It was the best Noah could muster.
“That’s exactly what I’ve come to expect, deputy.” He placed the box of goods on a cabinet top near the examination table. “I appreciate you stopping by, I’ll be fine now. And you can take these two other characters with you. I’d prefer to cast Brendan here by myself and not be distracted.”
“We were just leaving, weren’t we Franklin? Don’t answer and follow me.”
Lyle brushed by Noah, using his shoulder to nudge the deputy out of the way, and winked at him. “Till next time.”
Franklin lumbered behind Lyle. The big guy could’ve easily used his girth to bump Noah aside, but he didn’t.
“Excuse me.” He spoke softly, and Noah stepped aside. Franklin replied with a quick head nod and exited the room.
Noah waited until he was sure the men had left the building.
“Doc, you got a second before you get to work?” Noah glanced in the direction of the waiting room. Richardson checked Brendan, who’d fallen asleep.
“I don’t see why not.”
Once they were out of earshot, Noah made a single request.
“Anything he blurts out, like, say you inject him with morphine and confuse him, and you ask him about his fall—”
“Are you suggesting that I deliberately get a patient under my care high on a drug in order to question him about whatever skullduggery he was up to when he fell?”
“Yes.”
“Are you serious?”
Noah waited a beat. “Yes.”
“Look, I help the law however I can, but I do it without jeopardizing my ethics and my conscience. So, no, I can’t help you like that. You studied law, you know that.”
“I mean, if you have knowledge someone’s committed a crime or about to, and it puts people in harm’s way, aren’t you obligated to tell the law?”
“Now you’re making some sense. Doctor-patient privilege isn’t easily broken. I’m not certain how South Carolina law handles the topic, but—” Richardson stopped upon hearing the clinks of broken glass in the examination room.
The doctor, followed by Noah, burst into the room to find Brendan smiling while he injected morphine into his arm with the syringe Richardson had prepared. He’d used one of the crutches the doctor leaned on the wall to hook around one of the mobile table’s legs and wheel it toward him. A couple of empty specimen jars had rolled off the table as it moved. Richardson’s eyes followed the trail of broken glass to the burgeoning addict who reclined on the examination table.
“Thanks for the morphine, Doc.” The syringe rolled out of his hand and broke on the floor.
Richardson grabbed Noah by the shirtsleeve and led him back to the lobby.
“I guess that saves you the trouble of having to inject him,” Noah said. They stopped by the clinic’s front door. The doctor grabbed the knob.
“Here’s what I can do, I’ll keep an ear out for anything this man says that comes out unprompted,” Richardson said. “I’m not going to ask him questions and do your job for you. But I’ll pay attention, and I won’t hesitate to report something to you, especially if it has zero to do with my treatment of him. I suspect his criminality extends beyond stealing morphine. And I don’t doubt for a moment he’s done worse.”
“Deal. I’m working late. I’ll check back with you later when I watch Brendan while you sleep.”
The doctor opened the door halfway and paused. “What?”
“Well, it could be me. I might also be at the jail watching over Culliver. We’re not taking a chance leaving Brendan alone in there, and not because I’m worried about him swiping more of your drugs. He said he broke his leg falling out of a tree while watching birds.”
“Nonsense.”
“Precisely. Given all that Henderson’s been through, I have every reason to believe Brendan, like Culliver, could be in danger from, from whatever’s out there. I hope I’m wrong.”
“So do I. I pray for the sake of the Army and the Sheriff’s Department that you’ll be in greater numbers tonight?”
“We’re gonna blanket your property. Nothing’s gonna slip by us. Not again.”