“Hold him down, goddamn it,” Dr Potter yells, lifting the saw back up.
“We’re trying, sir,” Corporal Dennis says, “but he’s too damn big and he’s strong as an elephant.” Dennis and two others are splayed across the big man who, even wounded as he is, can’t be kept still. The man’s right arm is attached at the elbow by little more than gristle and splinters of bone, from the ball that had crashed into it. It needs to come off but he won’t hold still. Fast as he is, even most of the way drunk, Potter needs at least a few seconds to work.
Alexander puts one hand on the soldier’s chest. “Look at me, son. Look at me!” he says, leaning down. The man’s wildly rolling eyes come to rest on his. “What’s your name?”
“Wilson, suh. Oliver Wilson,” the man says through gritted teeth. “Don’t take my arm, suh. Please.”
Dr Potter shakes his head. “Private, that arm needs to come off. I’m sorry. You’ll get septic and die if it doesn’t. That’s not worth an arm.”
“I need to work, suh. I need my arm to work.”
Alexander pats him on the chest. “You can’t work if you’re dead, Mr Wilson. Now, I need you to be quiet. Big fellow like you, tossing my orderlies around, that won’t do. I promise I’ll be quick and it will only hurt as much as it needs to.”
“Please, suh, no.”
Alexander looks up at Dennis. “Hold him down, now. Merriwether, the pad.” With his hand still on the man’s huge chest, he can feel the muscles straining as the orderlies lay across Private Wilson again, fighting to keep him still until the ether-soaked pad does its work. After Wilson has calmed, it only takes a minute until there is another limb for the pile.
The next day, Alexander stops by Private Wilson’s cot during his rounds. He’s asleep and doesn’t wake as Alexander checks the bandages, leaning closer to sniff for signs of rot. He hopes that he’d been able to get all the bone fragments and debris out of the wound after taking the arm off, but sometimes these things are touch and go. It’s a shame, really: with the war finally wrapping up, boys shouldn’t still be losing their parts.
“Quite a specimen, eh, Doctor?” Hedwith has come up behind him while Alexander is examining Wilson’s dressing. “Even without the arm.”
Dr Potter just grunts. The presence of Morrison Hedwith sets him on edge. More than once, Alexander has finally decided to just finish it: put a bullet in his brain and an end to this new bondage to Hedwith, but he’s too weak, too cowardly to do so. Every day, then, he takes the medicine that keeps him alive; every day he does whatever thing Hedwith might require him to do. Now that the war is ending, Hedwith has become insistent, reckless, wanting to try as many formulae as possible while subjects are still free and plentiful. One day, soon enough, Dr Potter will be caught, court-martialed, and shot; he knows it, just as he knows that Hedwith himself will remain free to pursue his studies in secret. This is the devil’s bargain that Alexander has made, simply to cling to his wretched little scrap of a life for a bit longer. He knows he’s damned himself, and yet he continues. Maybe, one day, he will have a bullet for them both, though.
“The Negroid races are a mystery, I confess,” Hedwith says. “Physically, one can’t help but notice that many of them put us to shame: strong, full of endurance, whereas we Europeans are often stunted and weak, in comparison.”
“Come on, Morrison: put us ‘Europeans’ at hard labor in a goddamn field for fifteen hours a day, and pretty soon we’d be strong and full of endurance, too.”
Hedwith nods. “True, true, there is that. And the Celestials,” he says, switching tracks. “They themselves are small, lacking physical force, but clever. They’ve had their culture for thousands of years, invented many amazing things while our own ancestors were still scrabbling in the dirt. Perhaps they’re on one end of a spectrum, weak but cunning, and the coloreds on the other, strong but simple. We Europeans are somewhere in the middle, perhaps, the best parts of each.”
“Or maybe we’re just fucking average, not particularly good at anything, just lucky. You don’t really believe this horseshit, do you, Morrison? You’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.” Morrison has told him about Galton’s new theories of heredity and eugenics, theories which don’t strike much of a chord with Alexander. Humans are too complicated to have all their traits prescribed and explained like breeds of dogs.
“Still, it raises an interesting point,” Hedwith continues, ignoring Potter. “This man here, tall, broad, strong: how would he react to the Salt? Is there perhaps some extra component of strength that the African races have, one that will bolster the healing effects of the substance?”
Alexander looks at Hedwith. “Morrison, no. The man has lost an arm, for no good reason. This damnable war is almost over. Did you see the scars on his back? He was probably a slave before and deserves a chance at a life, now. A free one.”
Hedwith locks eyes with Dr Potter. “Exactly, Alexander: the war is almost over. We must make haste. Who knows what might happen in these last days. I understand there are shortages of all sorts of vital things. All sorts.”
Later that afternoon, like a whipped dog, Dr Potter returns with the latest formula, the number, date, and patient’s information carefully annotated in the little book he keeps for Hedwith. Oliver is still sleeping when Alexander spoons the substance into his mouth, sitting back on a stool for a time, watching, before going off in search of a drink.
He’s coming back from the commissary some hours later when the screams from the recovery tent reach his ears. Breaking into a run, Dr Potter ducks inside, pushing the orderly out of the way. He sets up a curtain around Oliver’s bed and sends the attendant away on a makeshift errand. Wilson is moaning and thrashing around, his big frame threatening to collapse the cot underneath him.
“It hurts,” he groans. “It hurts so bad, suh. Oh dear Lord, it hurts.”
Alexander puts a hand on the man’s chest, feeling the racing heart. Wilson’s muscles are twitching uncontrollably. Dr Potter is jotting notes in his little book with his free hand when he notices something incredible. Private Wilson has two arms again: one has sprouted right through the bandage at the elbow. He reaches over to the new arm, which is hot to the touch. The skin is smooth and soft like a baby’s, the muscles underneath quivering. Otherwise, it’s perfectly formed, no different in appearance than the one on the left. He grabs the big hand. “Squeeze, Private, hard as you can.” He gasps when the fingers close on his; the new hand certainly isn’t weak. Pulling his own fingers free with difficulty, he gently slaps Wilson’s cheek, trying to get his attention.
“When did the arm grow back, Private? Tell me. Wilson, tell me!”
Oliver hasn’t even noticed the arm. The pain inside his body is tearing him apart; it feels like he has thousands of hooks in his flesh, each pulling a different way. His mouth is full of blood and bile burns up his throat. “Help me, suh,” he pleads, looking up at the unshaven face of the doctor, the man who had taken off his arm. “Please help me.”
Alexander pauses in his note-taking. Please help me. He’d said the same thing to Hedwith, months ago, while he had gone through what Private Wilson suffers now. Even with the new arm, it’s apparent that the Salt is killing him. He well remembers the pain, himself, the feeling of his own body splitting apart under the substance. Please help me. How? Hedwith will never give Wilson the fixative; he’s an experimental subject, nothing more. He has no use. Better, in the grand scheme of things, to let him die.
Instead, without even realizing he’s done it, Alexander has his own little flask of fixative Salt out and is screwing off the top. Gently, he pushes open Oliver’s mouth, pouring it in, the whole flask, returning to his tent for more. After the man has settled down, Potter sits there at his side, late into the night, watching.
Oliver flexes his right hand, now, shaking out the tired muscles, remembering. After Dr Potter had saved him, at the end of the war, and explained about the Salt and Hedwith and the rest, he’d first wanted to die, wished that the man had let the stuff finish the job. He’d lived his whole life as a slave to white men, before escaping just long enough to join the Union Army and get shot. He had no desire to continue on as a slave to yet another, bound by chains of poison and what sounded like witchcraft. But he’d done so, nonetheless; the country was changing and a new life, even one within those parameters, was better than nothing at all. Dr Potter was right: he’d suffered too hard, too long, to just throw the chance away. Maybe he could find a way out.
Now, with his left hand, he rubs the muscles of his right while he rolls his thick neck on his shoulders, loosening up. He hadn’t allowed either of the boys, or Alexander, to help him with the graves. The act of digging, the pure muscle-straining labor of lifting dirt from the ground, helps him to not think about the fires, about Ridley’s open throat, about how Rula and Josiah had been found fused together, black and twisted, one indistinguishable from the other. They’d been laid in one grave, then, together. He hadn’t known either of them, not really, but something tells him that maybe they would have liked it, being with each other like that.
Fan’s body had been taken away by his people, the Celestials in Baker City’s Chinatown laying him to rest according to their own customs. Ah Fan had always been something of a cipher, but Oliver already misses him; the man’s constant presence in the fortuneteller’s tent had been something of an anchor. You’d known that Fan was always there inside but now he’s gone, along with his tent.
Bascom and Holly had gotten full-size graves, even though they weren’t much bigger than children by the end. Once they’d been different, and he felt that they deserved to be laid in the ground as they’d started, before the Sagwa had taken them.
Putting the earth over Ridley and Mercy had been hard, so hard. That boy hadn’t gotten a start at life, young as he was. Whatever he’d run from, he’d found a home with the show, these last months. Oliver had come to think of him as a little brother, almost; he’d lost plenty of family when he himself was young, dead or sold off to one place or another, but it doesn’t make it any easier now. He keeps listening for Ridley’s loud haw haw of a laugh, that horse’s bray that cut loose a few times a day for no good reason aside from simple cheer.
And Mercy, poor Mercy. Oliver isn’t ready to think on Mercy, just yet. He isn’t ready.
He pats the dirt down again over the graves. Alexander has barely spoken three words since the fire, aside from his statement to the sheriff. The only time he’d even left his tent was to walk to the little cemetery when it was time for the burying. Listening, eyes empty, as the minister said the words. Alex had ignored the questions of the townies who had shown up simply because they had nothing better to do and, because a fire, murders, and a kidnapping were a big deal in a small town. He’d just turned his back and walked away. The word is out about Lyman and a posse is forming, but Oliver knows it’s useless. They won’t catch him. Best he and Alexander and the boys can do, then, is run, try to get far away before Lyman comes for them. Same plan as before, when Lyman was still dead and it was Hedwith they were fleeing. First thing tomorrow, they’re gone.
Even though the graves are as filled as they’re going to get, Oliver doesn’t want to leave the cemetery just yet. Walking away from the graves is another goodbye he doesn’t want to have to make. Before the service, he’d paid the sexton the normal rate for digging the graves but then took the man’s shovel and did the work himself, taking more time for the farewell and losing himself in the rhythmic stretch and pull of his muscles. He’d started digging in the morning and the sun is going down now; by the time the last hole is filled, after these long hours on the shovel, he’s tired and his back is sore, but the pain feels good, in a way. Any man can dig a hole, after all, but he feels that laying Ridley, Mercy, and the others in proper, well-made graves, graves dug and filled by a friend, is the one final thing he can do for them himself.
Finally, it’s too dark to see, and Oliver knows he has to stop. With a last, quick prayer for their spirits, wherever they might be, he walks back down the hill to town, gives the sexton back his shovel, and returns to the remnants of their camp. Ag is sitting by the campfire, Sol pacing back and forth in front of it. If Alexander has been silent and withdrawn since the fire, Sol Parker has been the opposite: stomping around, cursing and hollering that they need to go, need to chase after Elizabeth and get her back, to put as many bullets in Lyman Rhoades as that fat body will hold. Before the service, Oliver had to tell Sol to either go ahead and just leave or shut up. They needed time to think and make their plans. What Oliver hadn’t told him, then, is that Elizabeth is as good as lost; going after her will only get them all killed. He knows it, Alexander knows it, but that young fool doesn’t, not yet; he’s seen a bit of Lyman, but doesn’t truly know what that man is capable of. It appears that, while Oliver was off digging, though, Sol has managed to work himself back up.
“Mr Wilson,” he calls, as Oliver passes by the fire, heading towards his tent, “Mr Wilson! What’s going on, now? Why are we still sitting around here on our fucking asses when we should be going? We’re wasting time.”
“Sol–” Ag says.
“Shut it, Rideout! You just close your jaw. Mr Wilson, I said: what are we waiting for?” Sol is pacing back and forth, passing his gun from hand to hand. “If y’all don’t get it together, I’m going. I tell you, I’m going. By myself, if I have to. You fucking cowards can stay here if you like, but I’m going.”
One part of Oliver wants to walk over there and slap the shit out of loudmouth Solomon Parker, but another part of him, the larger part, knows that Sol is right: they’re cowards. That’s the truth, plain and simple. But, sometimes, cowardice is just something a man has to accustom himself to. Going after Lyman will just get these boys killed, or worse. He and Alexander are doing them a favor, trying to get them away, down south to the Gulf or wherever, but away, as far from Lyman Rhoades as they can get. It might stick in the craw but, if it isn’t bravery, it isn’t entirely cowardice, not all of it, getting these boys gone. It doesn’t matter what happens to him and Alexander; they’re lost anyway. It’s only a question of time. It would have been good to go down fighting, for once, but they can’t add these two fools’ lives to all the others on their slate, and that, in itself, isn’t entirely cowardice.
“Yes, Sol, we’re cowards,” Alexander says, quietly, coming out of his tent, slowly walking up to the fire, limping slightly, coughing. He looks a hundred years old, Oliver thinks, hunched-over and shaky like that, with that haunted, dead look in his eyes.
“There you are, Doctor!” Sol yells. “The hell you been? We need to get going, if we’re going to catch up to this Lyman fellow. You know where he’s going, don’t you?”
“I know where he’s going, Sol. He’s going to Portland, to Dr Hedwith. We won’t catch him.”
“The fuck we won’t catch him. We will, and when we do, I’m going to finish what got started the other night. God help me, I am. We have to get going, Doctor. Now.”
Alexander sits down, tiredly. “You’re going to finish this, are you? Like you did before, huh?”
“I wasn’t–”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” Alexander looks up, interrupting. “You couldn’t finish it then, and you won’t finish it now. Big talk doesn’t mean anything, boy. So maybe shut your mouth for a change.”
“Goddamn it, don’t you say that. Don’t you fucking say that.” Sol has a wild look in his eyes.
“Alex, come on now,” Oliver says, wanting to tell him to go easy on the boy, true as his words might be.
Dr Potter looks up at him. “What? Are you going to finish this, Oliver? You going to tear off Lyman’s head with those big hands of yours? That it?”
Oliver bristles, but fights down his emotion. This is just grief coming out, Alex’s way of dealing with losing Mercy and Ridley and the others. Oliver knows what Alexander is feeling: that he was supposed to protect them, to keep them safe, and he’s failed.
“And what about you, Agamemnon? You going to finish this, gunslinger?” Alexander turns to Sol’s skinny brother, the brother that has just been sitting there quietly.
“Sir, I don’t even know what’s going on. I just want to go home.”
Alexander barks a single bitter laugh. “There, you see? From the mouths of children. I just want to go home. Smartest fucking thing I’ve heard said tonight.” He rubs at his eyes with hands that are trembling.
“So what about you, old man,” Sol says. “You just going to fucking sit there and blubber and oh poor me, tuck your tail and skulk off like a broke-dick dog? That what you planning on?”
Oliver takes a step forward, readier now to deliver the slapping he’d considered earlier. He controls himself with some effort, knowing that Sol is grieving as well, in his own way, for everything that’s happened. Some folks get strappy; some, like Alex, crumple down for a time. Some men dig holes all day. It will pass but, until it does, they all need a bit of the soft touch.
Alexander staggers upright, slowly, weaving on his feet for a long second or two. He coughs, hawking up a gob from his lungs; he spits, and then rubs his hands over his face for a moment, wiping the tears out of his eyes. When he pulls his hands away, though, the look on his face isn’t one you’d think to find on a sick, shaky old man. It’s certainly not one Oliver can ever recollect seeing on Alexander’s face, not in all the years he’s known him. Dr Potter steps close to Sol, standing straighter, and points a finger at the boy’s chest. Sol’s eyes widen a bit and he takes an involuntary step back.
At that moment, cold, dead-eyed Dr Potter looks more than a little like Lyman.
“What I’m planning on, Sol? I’ll tell you: I’m going to fucking Portland. I’m going to Portland and I’m going to get that fucking girl back. I’m going to kill Lyman Rhoades, pull out his fucking guts and piss on his fat fucking corpse until I know he’s dead, and then I’m going to set him on fire and shit in the ashes. I’m going to kill Morrison Hedwith, tear down his fucking building, and I’m going to kill every other goddamn person who crosses me, if I have to burn down the whole fucking city to do it. That’s what I’m planning, boy.” His voice is icy, filled with controlled rage. He looks at the three of them in turn, slowly, staring into their eyes.
“Now, which of you bastards are coming with me?”