Race for the Dying (25 page)

Chapter Forty-three

We're now dispensing veterinary services?” Dr. John Haines asked as Thomas wheeled into his office. He waved off Thomas' question. “Alvina is in the back room with the canine royalty. Quite a transformation, I must say.” He pushed himself out of his chair.

He glanced out the window. “Nasty night.”

“Yes, it was. Both the constable and Ward Kittrick.”

“My heavens. That's what Zachary was telling me upstairs just now. You've been with Winchell?”

“Yes.”

“He's a good man, Thomas. One of the best. He's a valuable friend to have.”

“That was my impression.”

“Well,” and Haines flashed a quick smile, “Alvi is anxious, so I'll not detain you further. I sent Jimmy Doyle home, by the way. Two of his fishing buddies came to help him. The wound looks fine.” Seeing no point in arguing, Thomas simply nodded his thanks.

“I'll see what Alvi's planning,” he said as he left the office. The door of the small room where he'd done the postmortem on Charlie Grimes was open.

Alvi was kneeling beside Prince, stroking his broad head and whispering who knew what to him. The animal sat awkwardly, obviously in great discomfort. “My God, Alvi,” he exclaimed. “You are a worker of miracles.”

“Well, hardly that,” she said, straightening up. “But you must admit, he's rather handsome.”

And he was, Thomas had to agree, in a gaunt, gangly sort of way. “How did you accomplish this transformation?” The abundant muck had been washed from the dog's coat, leaving him a uniform brindle, with the expressive long eyebrows of the wolf-hound blood that lay somewhere in his lineage. He gazed at Thomas and sighed, then looked up with adoration at Alvi.

“We made a mess of one of Mr. Lindeman's horse tanks,” Alvi said.

Thomas examined the animal critically. “I would guess seventy or eighty pounds?”

“Certainly every ounce of that. At least that. I had to boost him into the tank one part at a time. He was reluctant.”

“I wish I'd seen that. Now the question is, Alvi: Once in and clean, how did you get him out?”

“In a very undignified fashion,” Alvi said, smiling sweetly. “I hope no one was watching. Much like yourself and the bath.”

He felt the dog's bony shoulders and slender neck. Prince smelled faintly of perfumed soap. “The problem here is that I've never experimented with morphine on an animal,” he said. He reached out and stroked the wide dome of the dog's skull, running his other hand back along the dog's spine. When his fingers reached within inches of the abscess, Prince shifted away.

“Yes, it hurts,” Thomas said. Then, to Alvi, “I think a half grain to start. We want him far, far off in his dreams. Otherwise he'll take my hand off.”

“A half grain? That's rather a lot.”

“Yes, it is. But in order for the ether to take effect without him struggling…”

“I'll do it,” Alvi offered. She rose, one hand on top of the dog's head. “I'll be but a moment.”

When the door closed, the dog's head swung back to Thomas like an odd pendulum, and for several moments they sat quietly, the animal's head hanging, one shoulder heavy against the young man's leg, his posture one of complete resignation.

After a bit, Alvi returned with a small wheeled cart and an array of instruments, including a pan of hot water, shaving cake, brush, and razor. She nodded at the selection of steel instruments. “This is all that was claved,” she said. “Bertha is restocking. She said to tell you that half a grain may be too much for a dog.”

Thomas looked sideways at Alvi. “And how does she know this?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she said. “But she said it as if she knew. And if I recall correctly, that's what I said as well.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, at the same time handing him his stethoscope. He took his time adjusting the earpieces, watching the big dog. The animal simply waited.

The dog's heart galloped along at 145 beats a minute, a good solid beat without additional sounds. He shifted the instrument's bell and listened. “Take a deep breath and let it out slowly,” he said in mock seriousness. After a minute he straightened. “Well, I don't know what to compare him to, but nothing sounds as if it's leaking. No murmurs, no rales, no…What?” He frowned and the dog held his gaze without blinking.

“All right, let's try a quarter grain. His pulse is high, and there isn't a lot of fat on this old carcass.” Alvi held out the charged needle, and Thomas looked at her in surprise.

“You didn't really want me to do it, did you?” she asked. “Anyway, somebody has to hold him, and I know that he won't bite me.” In a completely unladylike fashion, she swung a leg over the dog so she stood astride the animal at the shoulders. She buried her hands in the thick ruff high on his neck, and Thomas moved as quickly as he could, slipping the needle into the muscle of the dog's left haunch rather than searching for a vein. He managed to empty the dose before the dog had pulled completely away, despite Alvi's hug.

“That does it,” he said. “No vein, but it'll find its way.”

In moments, Prince's eyes drooped even more than usual, and he rested his head and shoulders hard against Alvi's knee. She continued cooing to him, stroking his face and muzzle as the drug took effect.

“Okay, he wants to lie down now,” she said, and eased out of the animal's way. The dog uttered a mighty sigh, but Alvi kept her arms under him until, with an enormous grimace and grunt of effort, she caught him fully in her arms and stood up.

“My God, if I—,” Thomas said, but she already had the dog up on the table, where the animal stretched out with another sigh and an odd smacking of his loose lips.

“Let's give him another few minutes and try it without ether,” Thomas said. He wheeled to the end of the table. “I'll want him on his back.” He tentatively lifted one of the dog's hind legs to measure a response, but Prince was somewhere else. Thomas pulled his crutches close, backed his chair against the wall, and rose to his feet. He swung to the table and in a moment, the two of them had the large dog stretched out on his back, his vast, narrow rib cage sloping down to a belly that hugged his spine.

Thomas splayed the damaged leg outward, and the dog shifted uneasily. “The other quarter grain, I think,” he said. He pointed at one of the large veins on the inside of the leg. “Right here.” The abscess appeared to surround a small wound about the size of a pencil, but the dead tissue and inflammation surrounding it was grossly swollen and foul.

He took his time with the razor, and Alvi watched critically. “Make sure he's not in danger of swallowing that big tongue of his,'' he said. He bent down, moving his head out of the light. The abscess was deep, pushing into the thick, ropy muscle, the necrotic tissue extending to within an inch of the dog's anus.

“Well,” he said, and let his apprehensions go at that.

With the smallest scissors and bistoury, he excised dead tissue from around the rim of the wound. “Something poked him a good one,” he said. With a probe, he began to explore the wound, but immediately released a purulent gusher of pus, blood, and fluid. The dog jerked, but Alvi remained at the animal's head, whispering nonstop assurances. Grimacing from the smell, Thomas cleaned the area again, liberal with the caustic disinfectant.

In a moment he tried to relax his back. “This is deep,” he said. “I'm afraid that I'll have to cut a fairly good-sized incision. Best to use ether, or he's going to thrash about.”

With the stethoscope, he listened to the dog's heart as he dripped the ether into a small towel draped over the animal's muzzle. By the time he was convinced that Prince was thoroughly anesthetized, the dog's pulse had settled at eighty beats a minute, solid enough but sounding as if the organ was pumping molasses.

With swift, sure incisions, Thomas opened the abscess, cutting parallel with the muscle fibers.

“This animal has been shot,” he said finally. “If I'm not mistaken, the bullet is lodged against the head of the femur.” Five minutes later he held up the forceps clamped around a sizable chunk of gray lead. The nose of the projectile had mushroomed slightly when it struck the bone.

By the time Thomas was confident that he had removed all the dead tissue and cleaned out the wound to the bone, he had excavated an impressive crater.

He had settled back to relieve the ache in his lower back when he heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. In a moment, Zachary Riggs thrust open the door without knocking.

“Alvi,” he said pleasantly enough, “are we to expect you upstairs shortly? Carlisle is here today, remember.”

“When finished.”

Riggs stood silently for a moment, regarding them. “Am I to assume that this is to become a regular service? Surgical services to the bestiary?” He chuckled with disbelief.

“When it's necessary,” Alvi said, the same even tone offering no excuses, no apology.

Thomas glanced up at Riggs. “Someone shot the dog,” he said, and held up the slug, now aware of the obvious similarities with the one lying in cotton padding in the Winchell collection.

“That's hardly surprising,” Riggs said, turning to go.

“From your derringer?” Thomas said, and Riggs stopped, eyeing him thoughtfully.

“Of course it is,” he said after a moment. “The choice open to me at the time was clear.” He smiled and started to close the door. “You won't be long, I hope,” he said to Alvi, and didn't wait for an answer.

“We ought to have a drainage tube in this, but I can't imagine the patient will leave it alone,” Thomas said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “The sutures will be enough of an attractive nuisance.” He selected the first thread and began the laborious process of reassembly. He had finished only the first set of internal sutures when they heard loud voices, first outside, and then in the waiting room.

Chapter Forty-four

Thomas felt the change of air in the room as the door opened behind him, and he paused, fingers motionless, deep in the wound. He turned, half expecting to see Zachary Riggs again. But it was John Haines. “You're finished?” Haines asked, his voice husky.

“No,” Thomas said. “Closing, but it's going to take some moments.”

“We've had an ugly incident at Schmidt's mill, and one of the injured can't be moved. I'm riding out, but…” He hesitated, moving closer to examine the patient. “I'm not sure how much help I can be. I want you to go along, Thomas. If you're able. I know riding in the wagon is a trial for you, but if you think you can manage?”

Thomas looked across at Alvi, who nodded without hesitation.

“Go ahead, Dr. Thomas. I'll finish here.”

“She can suture with the best of them,” Haines said. “Horace has the carriage here, and Bertha is putting together your kit.”

Thomas felt Alvi's small hand take the suture and needle from his fingers, and he moved out of the way. “Be careful that you—”

She interrupted him with a raised eyebrow. “I know how to suture, Dr. Thomas. You're needed elsewhere.”

Haines waited at the door as Thomas dropped into the wheelchair and pushed himself out of the room.

“My horse is here, so I'm going on ahead,” Haines said. “From what I'm told, time is of the essence.” A trace of a smile appeared. “I've told Horace to drive carefully, Thomas.”

“Riggs was just down here,” Thomas said as he wheeled out of the room. “Surely he can be of help as well.”

“Zachary is no surgeon,” Haines said over his shoulder. “Let's not waste another moment.” Haines' heavy medical bag was sitting by the front door, and with that he was gone. Thomas heard the creaking of a buggy just as the door closed behind Haines.

“This is all we have,” Bertha said from the door of the examining room. She hurried toward Thomas with his medical bag.

“Do you know what I'm to expect?” he asked.

“No, I have no idea what happened. One of the workers who came to fetch the doctor said that a saw exploded. What that means, I don't know.”

Heavy boots pounded on the porch, and Horace appeared, breathing hard. He held the door for Thomas, at the same time taking the medical bag from Bertha.

The partially enclosed buggy was more awkward than an open buckboard, but with his right foot on the steel step and a hand grasping the canopy uprights, Thomas was able to turn and find the seat. He braced his crutches between the footboard and the seat and gripped the fly upright with his right hand. Horace let the reins stroke the mare's back, and the animal stepped out smoothly.

The rain had stopped, the sky hanging gray and threatening. The horse obviously knew the way, and Thomas braced himself against the bumps and ruts. Horace took the main high road, a lane that wound north away from the coast and skirted a low bluff northeast of the village, country entirely new and breath-taking for Thomas.

“Can't take the shore trail,” Horace explained. “Not with the buggy.”

“Good,” Thomas said, flinching from the jarring. Now, he saw that Port McKinney was smaller than he had first imagined.

The road turned to skirt another swampy inlet alive with waterfowl, but Thomas dared not take his eyes from the road, ready to brace himself every time the wheels found a root hidden in the muck.

By the time they drove around the bluff, Thomas could see the stretch of coastline again, denuded of timber, instead presenting vast stumpage that thrust up through a mat of emerald rhododendron, berry canes, and strangely contorted little trees that Thomas didn't recognize. Most of the shoreline was a mass of boulders, black and thrusting, decorated with swarms of waterfowl and curtains of white droppings.

His pulse quickened as he saw the complex of low, flat-roofed buildings ahead, a small, uniform village tucked in close to the shore. But in five minutes, Thomas discovered that what he had assumed to be buildings were in fact enormous ricks of lumber, marching in neat columns down toward the wharf. Great pilings jutted out of the water, and he saw the double masts of a schooner, its hull hidden behind the ricks.

The road swung sharply toward a large, pitched-roof building, the pungent aroma of freshly cut timber in concert with the tang of the ocean, mud, and horse sweat. Thomas saw Haines' horse tied to an upright by the open end of the mill, but Horace drove around the building and pulled the mare to a halt beside a single doorway. “Easier for you to go in this way,” he said, and in an instant he was out of the buggy. “I have your bag. When we're inside, mind where you step.”

Although he had but a dozen steps to maneuver on his crutches between buggy and building, he was breathing hard by the time he reached the doorway. The grasping, fathomless mud was replaced by a soft, fragrant pad of sawdust as he hobbled inside. As gloomy as it was outside, the interior of the mill was far worse, and Thomas stood for several seconds, trying to make out the blur of shapes.

Thomas' pulse raced as the size of the mill operation became clear. Massive iron wheels and heavily greased gears, open leather drive belts, logs that must have weighed tons, live steam apparatus, cables stretched tight as a giant's piano strings—his darting eyes inventoried those and more as he made his way through the mill, following closely behind Horace, who appeared intimate with the business.

Two men with their backs turned never heard them coming. Thomas saw others working in the shadow, and at one point thought he saw Dr. Haines' looming figure.

“What happened here?” he asked.

“We got a mess,” one man said. He looked Thomas up and down, and saw the medical bag that Horace carried.

“Boss is over there.” The man pointed toward a jumble of equipment. “In the sawyer's shack with Larry and the others. Mind your step around the carriage.”

The wind through the open side of the mill was wet and cold, with the light muted enough that Thomas felt as if he were trapped under a dark blanket. He concentrated on following Horace. The “carriage” turned out to be an enormous version of the slick tracks Thomas had once seen in a small Connecticut sawmill. Here, the two mammoth parallel chains dogged the logs toward the saw, and then carried the cut slabs to the outside. The saw itself made no sense to Thomas. No blade was in evidence, and an enormous log lay on the carriage.

As they drew closer, he saw Dr. Haines straighten up. “For God's sake, man, find some light,” the physician boomed to a stocky man barking orders. “Ah, good,” he said when he saw Thomas. “Careful, now.” The crowd of perhaps a dozen mill workers gave way as Thomas maneuvered his crutches. He could smell grease, hot steel, and both sawdust and wood smoke.

Thomas stopped short. In the tangle of broken framework, he could see the dim light glint off a great, gray curl of steel with teeth an inch long. He realized he was looking at the remains of a giant band saw, rather than the circular saw that he had expected.

“She just exploded, boss,” one of the men babbled. “Hit something and just came a flinders. Old Larry, he was right in the middle of it.”

Edging sideways, Thomas traced the path of the saw blade and saw that one loop had been stopped by the lower portion of what had been a standing wall. Like a great snake, the curve of the steel arched down to the floor and back up, passing diagonally across a man's body from right hip to left shoulder. The man's shirt had been cut away, and Thomas saw that the spine of the blade had actually plunged into the man's torso high up, under his left shoulder.

“Over here,” Haines said.

Thomas could see that as the blade fragment hit the man, the teeth had been facing outward, raking across the inside of his arm, slicing muscle and bone. It appeared that the end of this section of blade had plunged to a halt in the wall behind them.

“Bring the lights in,” Thomas snapped. Nothing he was seeing made any sense. Edging awkwardly along the remains of a back wall, Thomas made his way far enough that he could slide down and reach the man's head. Reaching over the curve of the saw blade—he saw now that it was nearly twelve inches wide and could only guess at its original length—he touched the man's neck. He could see no respiration, and the pulse was thin and thready, racing as if the heart was desperately trying to manufacture blood to pump.

“What's his name?” Thomas asked.

“Larry Beautard,” the burly man said, and by the deference shown him, Thomas guessed him to be the mill boss. He held a lantern close, and Thomas could feel its heat on his face. As he counted the faint heartbeats, he tried to imagine the carnage the massive blade would have caused to fragile tissues. “How many minutes ago did this happen?”

“Be about twenty,” a voice said.

“Had to be more'n that,” another argued. “Closer to half an hour.” Thomas recognized Jake Tate's voice.

Something touched his shoulder and Thomas turned to see his stethoscope dangling from Dr. John Haines' hand.

Slumping to his knees, Thomas worked the earpieces into place and closed his eyes as he placed the instrument's bell on the bloody chest.

The pulse was ragged, lopping, thin—but the respiration was worse, an airy gurgle as blood and air mixed in all the wrong places.

“My God,” Thomas breathed. He snatched the earpieces out. “Let me have the lantern down low,” he ordered. Taking most of his weight on his right knee, he braced against one crutch. Sure enough, the blade was crushing into the left shoulder joint. It had sliced into the man's chest at the third rib, ramming through muscle, bone, and then lung. At the same time, the giant's sword had slashed through the inside of the sawyer's left arm, chopping the upper arm bone, muscles, and nerves. With such a gash, the great arteries and veins of the shoulder and arm surely would have been severed. Beautard should have been dead.

Thomas sat back. By a quirk of fate, that very blade was responsible for Beautard's continued pulse and feeble breath. Had the blade flashed on through, leaving the man lying free, the massive wound would have bled him out in seconds. As it was, the blade's pressure acted as a clamp—a spring steel tourniquet. The huge blade had pinned Beautard against the floor and wall, crushing the blood vessels.

“If we move that blade now, he'll bleed to death,” Thomas said quietly. “That's what's keeping him alive.” He turned to find the man at his elbow. “How long is this thing?”

“Before it broke, fifty-four feet.” The man bent over, hands on his knees. “Don't know how long this piece is. Maybe fifteen, eighteen foot, it looks like. You aren't going to move it without killing him…if he's not gone already.”

“He's not gone,” Thomas said. “I won't move the blade, but we'll certainly move him.” He grimaced and looked at the worried faces, but Haines had evidently read his mind. “Let's move about a dozen of you out of here,” the older physician boomed. “And then every light you have, Bert. That's what we need right now. Light. And put the two bags right here beside me.”

Thomas pushed his head bandage upward, and then with a curse jerked it off altogether. The gauze yanked at several stitches, and he swore.

“You're able to do this?” Haines said, and Thomas could smell the alcohol on the man's breath.

“We have no choice,” he replied. Saying it was one thing. His hip flexed enough that he was able to thrust his left leg behind him after a fashion, taking most of his weight on his right knee as he leaned forward.

By the time he'd managed a position from which he could work, Haines had sutures in the pan of phenol.

“The light,” Thomas ordered, and someone maneuvered around the blade and the victim. With the lantern held so close it could make blood sizzle, Thomas first cut away the remains of the sawyer's clothing. He worked steadily, following the wound deeper and deeper, being careful not to nudge the steel blade.

After a moment he looked up, nodding at what had been the back wall of the shack. “Take out that wall,” he said, and the man to whom he spoke didn't react.

“You're Mr. Schmidt?”

“Yes,” the man said.

“Well, Mr. Schmidt, in order to move him out of here, you're going to have to remove that wall. Just the portion immediately behind him.” He reached for another suture. “And don't disturb the blade. Not a fraction, not a hairsbreadth. Don't touch it.”

“Jake!” Schmidt shouted, but Tate had heard the instructions and was already moving. In less than a minute, they could hear a crew of men outside the building, working on the slab wood behind Beautard's head. Nails screeched as they were yanked from the green wood. When one proved stubborn, the wall shook as Jake took an axe to it. A splinter of wood flew from the wall, glanced off the rim of the pan holding the sutures and landed on Haines' forearm.

“By God, pay attention to what you're doing!” the older man shouted. In another minute they felt the flow of raw outside air. Hands reached to remove the piece of slab wood behind Larry Beautard's head.

“Wait!” Thomas snapped, and six pairs of apprehensive eyes turned toward him. “When you move that, his body's going to shift. We don't want that yet, so I need some hands in here. About three of you, if that many will fit.”

With Beautard's head and body supported to the physician's satisfaction, they watched as Jake removed the final small section of wall.

“I need more light,” Thomas said, and another lantern moved in close. “You see how that arm is going to have to move?” Thomas whispered to Haines, but even as he spoke, he was watching one of the sawyers who knelt nearby. The man's face was pallid, his forehead soaked in sweat, his eyes about to roll back in his head.

“You're not going to be able to save it, Thomas,” Haines said.

“I know that. But I want to amputate where we can see what we're doing, and where we can keep the stump clean.” He motioned with a free hand, his right buried in Beautard's armpit. “Just enough to clear the blade, now,” he said, and then more to himself than anyone else, he added, “I don't want any tension on the axillary ligature after I stitch him up.” His plan was to ease Beautard backward, away from the blade, working bleeders as they erupted.