David Nickle - Eutopia

This morning, that urge was gone. Maybe Dr. Bergstrom’s poison had run its course—had made him mean for awhile, like too much liquor or Coca-Cola. Maybe…

Jason drew a sharp breath then and forgot his musings, as a pair of figures emerged from the middle of the horseshoe. It was Aunt Germaine—and Dr. Bergstrom. They were talking to each other. But they did not seem angry—not like last night in his office, or at the quarantine. They seemed more like old friends now. As Jason watched, Aunt Germaine actually laughed at something the doctor said. Dr. Bergstrom did not seem as pleased. But he reached up and patted Aunt Germaine on the shoulder, and she did not flinch away from him.

Jason pulled back from the window. The easy part of the morning was over now. The rest of the day, he figured, was going to be a hard fight and nothing better.

Jason got Dr. Waggoner awake soon enough that they could talk about a plan for confronting Dr. Bergstrom. They figured they would not talk about the tiny people that Jason said he’d seen in the quarantine, the strange man in white and the other man behind the door, and concentrate on the question of why Dr. Bergstrom thought it was safe to strap down a healthy boy alone in an empty ward room.

“You going to talk to him about that girl?” asked Jason. “All butchered like a hog as she was?”

Dr. Waggoner shook his head. “We fight one battle at a time,” he said. “If we tidied things right, he won’t be sure we even looked at her. No, I will deal with that next time I can speak with Mr. Harper. Which,” he said, looking significantly at Jason, “I intend to do as soon as I am able.”

That was about all the planning they had time for, before the door swung open and Dr. Bergstrom, followed by Aunt Germaine, stormed in.

“What are you doing treating patients, Andrew?” he demanded.

Dr. Waggoner leaned back on the pillows they’d propped behind his back, as Dr. Bergstrom approached him closer.

“The boy was cut,” he said. “He could have become infected.”

“Do you have any notion,” Bergstrom said, “of the risk that you took in removing this patient from quarantine? He could be carrying an illness that might wipe out the town!”

“My,” said Andrew. “The entire town you say. That is quite some ailment.”

“And you removed him.”

“I did not remove anyone. He was already out when I met him.”

“Not possible.”

“How is that?”

Dr. Bergstrom drew back at that question, because Jason figured he had no good answer. Dr. Waggoner must have figured that too, because he showed the faintest trace of a smile as he nodded.

“You are not supposed to be practising,” said Dr. Bergstrom finally. Your arm , Andrew.”

“It works well enough for stitching a cut.” Dr. Waggoner looked at his hand coming out of that splint, waggled the fingertips. “And however you choose to address me, Nils , I am still a doctor here. At least according to Mr. Harper.”

“Yes. Mr. Harper.” Dr. Bergstrom regarded him with a squint. “Your benefactor.”

“I wonder, should we perhaps speak with him about this breach ?”

“Do not be so quick, to run—”

“Yes?”

Dr. Bergstrom glared silently, not answering.

Jason wanted to stay for more but he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his aunt standing close. She bent to whisper in his ear: “Come, Nephew. This is a matter between these men now. Not us. Not now.”

“But—” Jason did not care for the idea of leaving Dr. Bergstrom alone with his friend. But when he caught Andrew’s eye, he nodded, as if to say, Go on. I will be fine here .

Dr. Bergstrom looked at Jason too—and that, more than Dr. Waggoner’s encouragement, was what made up his mind, because Jason had never seen a man look hungrier than did Dr. Bergstrom looking at him then.

“Good bye, Dr. Waggoner,” he said. “Thank you kindly for the stitching.”

Dr. Waggoner smiled. “Take care of yourself, Jason.”

And out they went, hurrying down the hall and past the window overlooking quarantine.

“Why did you leave me in there?” said Jason as they moved to the stairwell. Aunt Germaine glanced at him with a queer half-smile.

“In the quarantine?” she said. “I am sorry, Nephew: I could do little else. Dr. Bergstrom is the senior medical official in Eliada.”

“ Senior medical official . Is that the same as the law?” Jason didn’t let his aunt answer the question. “Because if he is the law, like a sheriff or a judge, then I guess he has a right to inject a fellow with poison, tie him up and leave him to die. Otherwise…”

“Jason,” said Aunt Germaine, patting him on the shoulder, “the important thing is—the truly important thing is, that you fared magnificently . You—”

“I could just leave, you know.”

Germaine’s eyes widened in the dark of the stairwell. The two stood on a landing, she a step below Jason, and he towered over her. Perhaps that is what gave Jason the courage to say that thing. Because after having said it, he could scarcely believe it had come from his mouth. It was a region of thought he had not come near—even when his temper was at its hottest.

But he found it was a region with a clear path through it. So he went on.

“You got me out of Cracked Wheel when things were bad, and I’m grateful for that, and glad to know I have kin yet. But when I was sitting in the cabin with my mama, I figured on carrying on with what I could. A fellow willing to work can find it anywhere I figure. I’m surely big enough.”

Aunt Germaine opened her mouth to speak. But a sound came out that was unfamiliar to Jason. “Why—” she began, and “My nephew—” she went on, and finally, she opened her arms and flung them around Jason’s shoulders, and Jason realized with a hitch that he’d done something that nothing—not the death of her sister, nor the wasting at Cracked Wheel—nothing else had yet done in his presence.

Through his selfish words, he had made his Aunt Germaine cry.

“Why did you do that to the boy?” said Andrew when Jason and his aunt were well gone. “He’s not sick. From what he told me, any exposure to the illness that took lives in his home town happened long ago. And if he were somehow contagious… Well. He spent a long time on train and boat and foot without quarantine. What would be the point of containing him now?”

Dr. Bergstrom pulled up a chair to Andrew’s bedside. “You feel that you are qualified in some manner to question my decisions with regard to this boy? That’s interesting, Andrew,” he said.

“That boy was in danger, and you put him there,” said Andrew. “Deliberately. You tied him down and locked him up with that rapist, Mister Juke.”

Dr. Bergstrom leaned very close to Andrew’s face, and as he did so his expression underwent a change. And that was the first true sense that Andrew got that he might actually be in physical danger from this man.

“Do not,” he hissed, “call him that—you damned meddlesome nigger . Do not dare .”

Andrew drew back against his pillows. All he could think about was Maryanne Leonard, the things that had been done to her corpse. What could this man’s hands do to living flesh?

“Doctor,” he said as levelly as he could. “Control yourself.”

His words seemed to have some effect. For a moment, Dr. Bergstrom looked as if he would strike him, but the moment past. The doctor sat up, ran a hand through his hair, then looked deliberately into his lap for a moment before shutting his eyes tight.

When he opened them again, he drew a deep breath. He stood fast enough the chair rocked at his calves.