David Nickle - Eutopia

Jason swallowed as he let go of Sam Green’s hand, did his best to avoid making a face.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, meeting the older man’s eye.

“Hurry along, Nephew,” called Aunt Germaine from the street. He did. It was only at the end of the block, as Germaine rooted in her handbag for a fan, that he opened his hand and looked at the scrap of paper that Sam Green had left him there.

BE AT NORTH DOOR OF SAWMILL AT AFT SHIFT CHANGE, it read.

And underneath, in big letters underlined twice:

The sawmill’s north door was at the edge of a vast and shadowed lumber yard—a whole town made of stacks of square-cut timber, whose avenues and alleyways were choked in sawdust so thick it might have fallen in a storm. Jason Thistledown waded along its main thoroughfare as the hour neared four o’clock. A bell was ringing to signal the shift change, and because of this he was not alone on his march. Men were walking to and from their work. A couple of them made eye contact with Jason but just one of them, a heavy bald man whose beard dangled well past his neck, spoke to him, from across the crude avenue.

“Hey fellow,” he called, and beckoned him. Jason cringed inside. He was sure he was going to be found out, told to scat and then he would never learn what Sam Green wanted with him and not Aunty . But there was nothing for it, so over he went.

The man looked at him. “You new here, heh?”

“Yes sir,” said Jason. “Just came in yesterday, sir.”

“You name?” The man had a strange way of talking; like his tongue was stuck in his mouth sideways.

“Name!” he repeated.

“Jason,” Jason said.

“Nowak.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Is good place in Eliada,” said Nowak. “Godly. You like.”

And then he slapped Jason on the back and laughed deeply, and gave him a push forward hard enough to make Jason stumble.

“Thank you, sir,” Jason said, and waved as he stepped away from Nowak. Jason swore to himself. Telling his name to a strange fellow on his way to a secret meeting was probably a bad mistake. But it too was done.

Soon enough, they came upon the sawmill itself, and met with another group of men who were coming out. In this chaos, Jason stepped to one side, into a little alleyway between two long stacks of lumber. MEET AT THE NORTH DOOR, the note had said. AT, it read. Not INSIDE it.

Jason settled into shadow as the lumber yard cleared out, and waited. He’d positioned himself to have a view of the door without being too conspicuous—or worse, seeming like he was hiding.

He did not wait there long. The Pinkerton man showed up only a moment after the whine of the saw blade started up, and just preceding the first plume of sawdust that flew out a high opening. He was wearing his hat now, but no coat. His suspenders were showing atop a dusty white shirt. The revolver holstered at his hip was in plain sight.

He came out of the same door they were to meet by, and without so much as looking left or right ambled over to the spot where Jason figured he’d hidden himself so well.

“Aunty back there anywhere?” he asked, and when Jason shook his head he nodded. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” said Jason. “I left her a-napping back at the hospital.”

“Good. Anyone else see you come? I should have told you the same about Dr. Bergstrom and other folk too, but by the time I’d thought of it you’d left.”

“I didn’t tell Bergstrom. No one else either.”

“Good.” Sam Green stepped around Jason and set his behind against the lumber. “I thought you might have good instinct. Turns out I was right.”

“I don’t trust Dr. Bergstrom,” said Jason. “He locked me up in the quarantine with some kind of Devil, left me to—”

Sam Green raised his hand. “Hold on,” he said. “You don’t trust Dr. Bergstrom and that’s smart thinking. Why’n hell do you trust me ?”

Jason looked at him. “Because—”

“Because I invited you here to meet me by yourself, and not tell anybody?” Sam Green shook his head. “Boy, I wanted to, I could kill you right now and probably get away with it. You just told me nobody knew you came here, then started spilling everything after I buttered you up about your good instincts.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” Sam Green grabbed Jason’s shoulder and leaned close. “You’re in some trouble, Jason Thistledown. You’re right Doc Bergstrom locked you up in the quarantine with something else—maybe a Devil, maybe a freak of nature… but for certain something that has no business being there. He did that last night and he put you at grave risk, son. What do you think he’s going to do tonight?”

“I—”

“ I nothing. You listen, and I’ll tell you. What’s going to happen tonight, it’s got nothing to do with you. But it has a lot to do with our friend Andrew Waggoner. He’s not going to wake up tomorrow, if he stays in that room in the hospital through the night.”

Jason twisted his shoulder and Sam Green let go.

“All right,” said Jason, stepping back a bit, “I’m listening. You tell me what’s what.”

“Good.” Sam Green sat back, blew out his cheeks. Sawdust was falling on them now, light golden snowflakes, and the whine of the saw was steady. “First thing. I know that you and Dr. Waggoner met outside the quarantine last night. I saw you, because I was watching the quarantine under orders from Doc Bergstrom.”

“I didn’t see you anywhere—”

“You didn’t see me because I didn’t want you to.”

Jason glared at him.”You tell Bergstrom?”

“About last night? As it happens, no. No I did not. You and I are of a mind on Dr. Bergstrom, and that mind’s made up. I didn’t tell, but I did talk to him. Him and your aunt, early this morning.”

“My aunt?”

“Yes, son, your aunt. He did most of the talking but she was there for all of it. And he—” Sam Green looked at his hands, and huffed. “He asked me to do something. Or not to do something.”

“What?”

“He told me to keep clear of Andrew Waggoner tonight.”

“And that is it?”

“Son, you remember how I told you I was in dutch?”

Jason remembered. “On account of shooting those fellows at the hanging tree?”

He nodded. “That is why I’m in dutch with Mr. Harper. Doc Bergstrom is none too happy with me, either.”

“And why’s that?”

“I’m in dutch with the doctor,” he said, “for showing up at all.”

Jason gaped, and Sam Green nodded. “Or at least when I did.”

“You mean—”

“Bergstrom thinks that the Juke was never in any danger of hanging, or at least of dying from it. He said the important thing was for those fellows to try, and then to fail. Teach ’em a lesson, he said.

“He was more than happy to see the Negro doctor die on the end of a noose. It would have solved some problems for him if he did.

“And so he asked me to keep clear of the top floor of the hospital. He made sure to tell me that everyone would be keeping clear of the top floor of the hospital tonight. He told me that Dr. Waggoner needed his rest—and that if someone came by, to make sure they understood—why, he wanted to make sure no one who knew how to use a gun was there to stop whatever’s going to happen.”

Jason sat back and absorbed that. In the mill, the saw had stopped its work a moment—maybe while the men were positioning more logs. So the lumber yard became quieter, but the sawdust still fell.

“Why do you think he’s doing that?”